Black and grey realism style tattoo of a dove carrying a chain of three ornate skeleton keys, on the side of a person's ribs.

Dove carrying ornate keys on the ribs

Realism · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

A dove in flight holds a fine chain from which three ornate vintage skeleton keys hang, one with a heart-shaped bow and one with a star-shaped bow. The linework is clean and the wings and keys are shaded with soft grey gradients to give volume. The design is in black and grey ink and runs diagonally down the side of the torso against plain skin.

Realism Ribs Dove Bird Key Chain Heart Star

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The rain came sideways off the canal all afternoon, and by four the stallholders on Corporation Row had given up on their pitches. I kept my key-cutting bench under the awning anyway, because my dad always said a locksmith who shuts early is a locksmith who gets robbed. The cutting machine hummed like a hive and the gutter overhead drummed out a rhythm I'd stopped hearing hours ago.

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The woman came up the row with a carrier bag held against her coat. Inside were three old skeleton keys threaded on a fine chain, the links gone dull with handling. She said they belonged to her aunt's flat on Halliwell Road, the flat that needed clearing before the estate agent could do anything. One key had a heart cut into its bow, another a star, and the third was plain iron with a curl like a fern. Her aunt had kept them on that chain so nothing would ever get lost, she said, and she couldn't bring herself to split them up.

I tried to copy them as she asked, but the wards on the star key were worn too smooth to bite, and the heart key just kept slipping in the vice. Eventually I told her the honest thing: the locks on Halliwell Road had been changed years back, so these keys opened nothing now. She laughed, a short, wet sound, and said she'd known that all along. She only wanted something to carry in her pocket that had belonged to someone.

So I fitted a new split ring, slid the three keys onto it, and gave her the chain back without charging for the blanks. When she walked off towards the bus stop the rain had eased to nothing. A pigeon was sitting on the gutter above her, and I watched the little bunch of keys swing from her fingers until she turned the corner and was gone.