Black fine line tattoo of a heron in flight with dotwork shading, placed on the inner forearm.

Flying heron on a forearm

Fine line · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A heron with outstretched wings and a long neck and legs trails behind, drawn in black outline. Fine linework defines the feathers, and dotwork stippling adds soft shading to the wing and body. A faint arc of dots sits behind the bird's head, and the design is in black ink only against a pale, even background.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nan,

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The heron came back to the mill pond this morning, the same one as last spring I think, though I could be wrong, they all look like grey umbrellas standing about in the reeds. I watched it from the lock gate for nearly an hour. Mr Harcourt shouted at me twice for dawdling, and I told him a bird had taken my attention and he said birds had taken the attention of better men than me.

You asked in your last letter whether I have settled, and I have not decided how to answer that. The lodgings are fine. Mrs Pryce keeps the range going and never asks where I have been. The office is full of carbon paper and men who call me Miss Bell as if it is a joke they have been told to keep. But when the wind comes off the fen I stand at the window and think of you telling me that a heron only takes off when it has decided exactly where it is going, and never a moment before.

I went down to the pond after my shift yesterday and found one of its feathers caught in the wire fence. Grey, with a black edge. I have pinned it inside the cover of my ledger, where nobody will look, and I am writing this with it beside me. It is smaller than I expected. Everything you said about them was larger than the things themselves, which is what I have always loved about your stories.

I will come home at Michaelmas, if the trains run. Keep the kettle warm.

All my love, Margaret

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