Black traditional tattoo of an open mouth with white fangs and teeth, with the word LIES in a black panel, on a lower leg.

Fanged mouth with LIES on a calf

Traditional · Calf · Black and grey · Photo

A solid black open mouth with a row of white teeth and two prominent fangs frames a black panel reading LIES in white block capitals. The linework is bold with a clean outline and fully solid black fill, with a textured edge along the lips. The tattoo sits centrally on a pale, hairy leg against a dark red leather surface, and a partly visible grey ornamental tattoo and a fragment of text appear lower in the frame.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Tuesday, 4.10am. The proving cupboard is ticking again and Mr Okafor's rye is sulking under its cloth, so I have a few minutes to write this before the first van. Dad's old enamel sign is still bolted above the deck oven, the one with the open mouth, the two white fangs and that single word across the middle. He painted it in 1987 as a joke, and it has outlasted three ovens, two cats and a dial that has never once told the truth.

Keep reading

The dial says 240. It is nearer 210 on the left deck and 265 on the right, and the only way to know is to listen. Knock the base of a loaf and it should sound hollow, like an empty drum. Dad taught me that before he taught me my times tables. If the knock is dull, it isn't done, however pretty the crust looks. He said the crust is the oven's flattery.

Yesterday a man in a grey coat asked for a cob 'still warm, if you've got one', and I gave him one that was still warm, which is not the same thing. He ate it on the step and told me it was perfect, and I believed him, because he looked so pleased to be lied to. Dad would have laughed.

The van lights are swinging across the window now. I'm going to unbolt the sign and hang it on the back door where the drivers can see it, so they stop asking me which oven is honest.

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