Small black bird silhouettes fly in a trail up the inner wrist and forearm, with a wooden floor behind.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Flock of birds up a forearm

Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A close photograph of a pale inner forearm and wrist with a trail of small solid black bird silhouettes. The birds are mostly in flight, with the largest near the bottom of the forearm and smaller ones moving upward toward the wrist. The shapes are simple and flat, with no shading, and sit against a blurred wooden floor in the background.

Forearm Bird Flock Silhouette Flight

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom, the gulls went off the Skerry again on Tuesday, all at once, the way they do before weather. Your father would have sat on the step with his pipe and called it a sermon. I only counted. Forty-one, then I lost count when they wheeled above the lamp room and went up past the gallery rail like sparks blown the wrong way.

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I am writing because the lamp has started to stick. Mr Pryce came out on the supply boat with a tin of brass and a face like a wet Sunday, and he says the clockwork will want a fortnight of oil and patience. I told him we have patience enough on this rock to light a town. He did not laugh. He asked after you, which was kind of him, and I said you were learning to be a proper sailor on the mainland and I would like you home before the autumn takes the birds.

Last night the flock came back low over the water, black against the grey, and I climbed to the gallery with the paraffin can and watched them rise one after another up the face of the cliff. Each one lifted a little higher than the last, as if the wind had a ladder. I stood there until my hands went numb, thinking of the drawing you made at six, all those little birds marching up the kitchen wall in charcoal, and how you insisted they were leaving, not coming home.

I have left the lamp room door unlatched. If you come on the Thursday boat, you will find the glass polished and the third stair still loose, so mind your feet. Bring the sketchbook. I would like to see whether you still draw them flying away from me.