Black and grey realism tattoo of the Deathly Hallows symbol on a folded cloth, ringed by the words 'The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death', on the upper back.

Deathly Hallows on a cloth with circular quote

Realism · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A black and grey tattoo shows the Deathly Hallows triangle, circle and vertical line drawn over a folded cloth with soft, shaded folds and a cast shadow. The words 'The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death', with asterisks, curve around the design in a circular lettering arrangement. The shading gives the cloth depth against the plain skin of the upper back, which is framed in the photo.

Realism Lettering Back Deathly hallows Triangle Circle Quote Lettering Asterisk

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The cloth had been my grandfather's before it was Dad's, and by the spring the show went under it was the last thing we still owned outright. Dad folded it every night the same way, three corners tucked under, the fourth dropped over his left wrist like a waiter's towel. The ring was already sold, the ponies were at a farm outside Ashford, and a board covered the ticket booth window where the rain came in. Still he folded it, as if the crowd might come back to watch.

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On the last Saturday in October he called me into the empty big top and laid the cloth across the sawdust. Only one lamp was lit. Under the hem, in thread gone grey with washing, someone had stitched a small triangle with a circle inside it and a straight line running down through the point. Round the edge ran the old words the banner painters loved: the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. 'Every trick in this show is a lie,' he said, 'except the one where you have to keep still.'

He stepped under it. I counted to forty, the way he had taught me, and when I lifted the edge there was only sawdust, a dropped glove and the lamp humming. I did not scream. I sat in the dust and waited for an applause that never came, and eventually I understood he had never meant to vanish. He only wanted to be somewhere the bailiffs could not follow.

I still have the cloth. Every evening I tuck three corners under and drape the fourth over my wrist, and every morning I catch myself counting to forty before I look.