Black fine line feather tattoo on the side of a person's ribs, with soft shading along the quill and curling barbs.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Feather tattoo on the ribs

Fine line · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

A single black feather is tattooed on the side of the ribcage, angled diagonally from upper left to lower right. The linework is fine and sketchy, with loose strands and curled barbs, and light grey shading gives the feather some depth against the skin. The plain black fabric and white tiled wall in the background keep the focus on the tattoo.

Fine line Ribs Feather

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Mabel lost the feather during the last waltz of the Thursday session, and it came loose from her hat as if it had been waiting for permission. It turned over twice above the crowd, caught the light from the chandeliers, and settled on the boards near my broom. I was the only one watching. Everybody else was looking at the band, or at their own feet, or at the clock above the bar that had been five minutes fast since the war.

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I picked it up before the next set started. It was longer than my hand and far lighter than I expected, the strands loose at the edges where the barbs had come apart, the tip curled back on itself the way a wave curls before it breaks. I held it up to the lamp by the cloakroom and thought that no bird could look this careless and still be so exact. I slid it between the pages of the ledger where I kept the ticket stubs, meaning to give it back on Saturday.

Mabel came to the cloakroom at closing, coat already buttoned, a ticket for the night train to Liverpool folded in her glove. She said the hat was finished anyway, that the manager had docked her for the feathers twice that month. When I held the ledger out she shook her head and said a feather only ever flies when somebody lets it go, and she had let this one go on purpose, so I could keep it.

I didn't know what to say, so I said nothing. Outside it had started to rain. I pinned the feather inside my coat, against my side, and walked home the long way past the empty bandstand, and every few steps the wet pavement under my shoes made a soft hush, like someone brushing a hem across a floor.