Black and grey realism tattoo of a dandelion seed head with birds flying off it and the word Always below, on the side of the torso.

Dandelion seeds turning into birds on the side

Realism · Ribs · Mixed · Photo

A dandelion seed head with shaded, soft-edged seeds sits at the lower left, with a stem curving down beneath it. Silhouetted birds and loose seeds drift up and to the right, and the word Always is set in a plain serif below the seed head. The seed head uses soft grey shading, the birds are solid black, and one bird at the top right has a faint blue-grey tint.

Realism Ribs Dandelion Seed Bird Word Always

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The dandelions came up through the cracks of platform three every summer, and every summer Mrs Idris Coyle cut them down with a bill hook before the first train. Her daughter Nell said that was a waste. A seed head left alone would turn into birds, she said, if you blew hard enough and asked it properly.

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Nell's mother had gone north on the four-ten to Carlisle the autumn Nell turned seven, with one suitcase and a promise to write. The letters came for a year, then stopped. So Nell took to the bank behind the signal box each evening, picked the tallest clock and blew until the seeds lifted. They rose as a grey cloud, and then, because she believed it, the cloud thickened into wings. Black birds, quick and sharp, followed the tail lamp of the train up the line.

The stationmaster, old Abel Crewe, found her there one evening with a jam jar full of stalks. He did not tell her it was nonsense. He tore a strip from the timetable and wrote Always on it in pencil, the word he signed off every timetable with, and folded it into the jar. 'Birds carry what we can't,' he said. 'Give it to the one going north.'

Nell wedged the note into a seed head and blew. A blue-grey bird climbed above the others, circled the water tower once and set off towards the Cumbrian fells. She never had a reply, and in time she stopped waiting for one. Every spring after, the bank filled with dandelions, and Nell left every one of them standing.