Realism colour tattoo of a wrinkled elderly man with blue eyes holding a glowing orb, on a lower limb.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Elderly man holding an orb

Realism · Other · Colour · Photo

A large portrait tattoo shows an elderly man with a heavily lined face, blue eyes and a stern expression, wearing a collared shirt and a dark jacket. His hand cradles a glowing orb, and an orange flame-like shape sits behind his shoulder. The shading is smooth and detailed, with rich browns, oranges and blues, and the figure fills the frame with the orb as a focal point.

Realism Other Portrait Orb Flame Jacket

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The rain had been coming down on Saltergate market since before the bells, and old Abel Crane had not left his trestle all morning. Pigeons crowded under the awning. Stallholders dragged their tarpaulins tight and cursed the puddles. Abel sat with one hand closed around the glass ball on the table, as though it might roll off into the gutter if he let go.

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A woman in a green mackintosh came asking for it. She had a purse heavy with coins and a fat man behind her holding a black umbrella over both of them. Name your price, the fat man said. Abel did not look at the purse. He looked past them to the brazier his neighbour kept burning under the canvas, the orange flame that leaned toward him every time the wind turned. It is not for buying, he said, and it is not for anyone who wants to be warm without standing in the wet to earn it.

The woman went off muttering. Later a girl called Nell, with split shoes and a copper in her fist, stopped to shelter from the downpour. Abel asked her to carry his crates to the far corner for that copper. She did it without complaint, and when she came back he set the orb in her palm. It was warm, warmer than it had any right to be. It's only glass, she said. Then hold it until it isn't, said Abel. She held it. The rain thinned to nothing, the brazier guttered and went out, and the ball kept its light long after the stalls had shut.