Black ink tattoo of a bold geometric letter with a flock of small birds flying off it, on the inner forearm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Flock of birds beside a bold letter

Geometric · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

The tattoo shows a bold, blocky letter-like shape made of thick straight strokes, with a horizontal bar at the top and bottom and a diagonal stroke between them. Five small bird silhouettes trail upwards and to the right from the shape, decreasing in size. The solid black ink sits on pinkish skin with visible texture, and the image is shown straight on and tightly framed.

Geometric Forearm Bird Flock Letter Geometric shape

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Ruth, the Z you painted on the cabin door has held through two frosts, though the paint has lifted at the bottom where the coal dust works its way under it. Dad would have said it was good enough for a boat that spends more time in locks than out of them. I have stopped arguing with the boat about what counts as good enough.

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Pa's letter came with the Tuesday post at Stourport. It said the Ashby lock-keepers had finally agreed to pass the old Ceres without the usual shilling, and that Uncle Bert had been seen asking after us in the Bull. I read it standing on the towpath while five starlings lifted off the wall by the weir, one after another, each a little smaller than the one before, as if they were counting themselves out of the county. I wrote the number on the back of the envelope. Five. You always said I counted things when I was nervous.

I cannot tell you how long I stood there. The lock gates groaned, the water came up slow and brown, and the birds kept going until I could not separate them from the smudge of smoke over the chimneys. Then the boy from the next boat shouted that the tiller was loose, and I went back to work, because that is what the river asks of you whether or not you have had news.

I am sending the stencil back with this letter, so you can cut another if the paint goes entirely. Tell Bert the birds are his, since he always said I'd never fly anywhere I hadn't first been carried. I am keeping the Z. It is the only letter of ours that has ever stayed still long enough to be read.