Black and grey realism tattoo of feathers and a rose on an upper arm and forearm, with Roman numerals X II MCMXLIX in a line on the forearm.

Feather wing and rose on an arm

Realism · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

The photo shows a person's arm, cropped below the shoulder and above the wrist, with a large black and grey tattoo of layered feathers running from the upper arm down the forearm. The feathers are built up with soft grey shading and fine detail, and part of a rose is visible at the top of the upper arm. A line of black Roman numerals reads X II MCMXLIX across the lower forearm, set against a dark top and a pale background.

Realism Lettering Upper arm Forearm Feather Wing Rose Roman numeral

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The cook on the Mary Ellen Parr kept a rooster in a crate beside the coal bunker, and it crowed before the watch changed every morning until the captain swore it would end up in the stockpot by Sunday. Tobias Vane had cooked for the crew for nineteen years and did not argue. He only said the bird was lame in one wing, that a gull had taken the best feathers off it in the Minch, and that a creature with half a wing still had a right to tell the sun when to rise.

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On the Tuesday the rooster stopped. Tobias found it stiff in the straw with its good wing folded over its chest, and he sat on an upturned bucket for an hour with the lamp hissing above him. Then he went to the pantry, took down the tally board where he had scratched every voyage with a nail, and read the marks aloud the way his mother had read names from the parish book. Twelve crossings. Forty-nine storms he had counted against the weather. Nineteen years of breakfasts.

In the morning he dug a hole under the lee of the galley wall, where the wind could not reach, and laid the bird in it with the broken wing turned under. Before he filled it he plucked the last sound feather and pressed it into the tally board between two of the marks, where it stuck with a smear of lard. The captain came down for his tea and asked where the racket had gone. Tobias poured the tea and said the sun would have to manage on its own now, which it did.