Black and grey fine line tattoo of a small elephant holding a heart-shaped balloon on a string with cross, peace sign and anchor charms, on a forearm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Elephant with heart balloon on forearm

Fine line · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A small cartoon-style elephant sits at the bottom of the forearm, its trunk raised to hold a string that rises to a shaded heart-shaped balloon at the top. Along the string hang a cross, a peace sign and an anchor, drawn with thin outlines and stippled dot shading on the elephant and balloon. The tattoo is entirely black and grey on a light skin tone, with the design centred on the forearm against a dark, reflective background.

Fine line Dotwork Forearm Elephant Heart Balloon Cross Peace sign Anchor String

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The balloon was Ada's idea, and she was the only one aboard who thought a rubber heart would survive six weeks of Atlantic weather. She bought it at a market stall in Tilbury for twenty pence, then tied it to a length of fishing line she had strung with beads and charms from the ship's odds and ends: a chaplain's little cross, a peace sign off the bosun's old lighter, and a brass anchor she'd prised off a broken locker door. The wooden elephant had come from a Mombasa stall on our last voyage, and it sat on the rail of the galley with its trunk raised, as if it were holding the whole lot up for the rest of us to admire.

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We ran into weather off Finisterre on the third night. The sea came over the bow like a tipped lorry, and the galley door burst open and sent pans clattering across the deck. I went to batten it down and found Ada already there, one arm around the elephant and the other gripping the string, shouting over the wind that the heart was fine, the heart was fine. Then the line parted. I watched the balloon lift away into the black, a pale shape with a small cross and a swinging anchor under it, until the spray took it.

In the morning the sea had gone flat and grey. Ada was at the rail with a mug of tea going cold in her hand, and there, caught on the mast-top wire, was the heart, still tied to the last few inches of line. It must have snagged on the rigging and held through the whole gale. She laughed until she had to sit down on a coil of rope. We hauled it in, and she tied the string back to the elephant's trunk, and the little thing went back on the rail, reaching up for a sky that was hers again.