Five small solid black silhouette birds in a rising line across the inner forearm near the wrist, shown on a hand against a blurred green background.

Five birds flying across a forearm

Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A forearm and hand are shown, with five small black bird silhouettes in flight in a diagonal line from near the wrist up toward the elbow. The birds have simple, solid black shapes with no shading, and the lower panel enlarges the same five birds on a white background. The ink is black, and the blurred outdoor setting is green and red-brown.

Forearm Bird Flock Silhouette Flight

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Wren, the birds came back to the orchard wall this morning, five of them, lined up along the cable as if someone had sketched them there with one unbroken stroke. Your uncle says they are the last blackbirds that survived the dust years in the hydroponic sheds, and that they fly in a line so the wind cannot split them. I think they only follow the one at the front, and the one at the front is always the oldest. Today it was the grey-tipped bird with the torn left wing, the one you named Mister Fold when you were six.

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The manifest for the Meridian came through on Tuesday with your name printed beside a berth number. The clerk at the lift station told me I could keep the number for the rest of my life but not the name, and I have stopped asking him what that means. Your father would have known what to say. He always had a sentence ready for a bad day, usually one that rhymed, and it usually made you laugh even when it shouldn't have.

At dusk on the day the launch bell rang, the five of them rose off the wall and flew low across the dome glass toward the gantry lights. I watched until the glare swallowed them. Then, far out past the hangar, I saw the front bird turn back once, a small dark stitch against the orange, before the line bent round and carried on. I have decided it was looking for you, and I have decided that is allowed. Keep the line straight when the lights go out on the long watch, and when you wake, count five before you count anything else. The rest is only weather.

All my love, Mum