Four pink pen sketches of cats whose lower bodies become octopus tentacles, drawn in loose line work on white paper.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Four cat and octopus hybrid sketches

Colour · Flash

Four pink pen sketches show cat heads with octopus-like tentacles in place of bodies, arranged in a two by two grid. The linework is loose and sketchy, with small hatching and shading around the ears, eyes and tentacles. The single pink ink colour sits on a plain white background, with each drawing spaced evenly across the page.

Cat Octopus Tentacle Sketch

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The fishmonger's tabby had been stealing from the crab tanks since Easter, and by August Mrs Okonedo had stopped pretending she didn't know. Pepper sat on the slatted lid every morning with her tail wrapped round her feet, watching the octopus in the end tank the way a bailiff watches a shop door. The octopus was called Bertram by the lads who fed him mackerel, and he watched her back with eight arms folded and a look of deep, cold patience.

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One wet Tuesday the lid was left unlatched. Pepper pushed it up with her nose, dropped in without a splash, and found the water warmer than she expected and full of small, rude fish. Bertram unfolded himself to meet her. He offered a bargain in the only language the two of them shared, which was the language of shifting weight and suspicion. She could have his arms for an afternoon if he could have her ears, and her whiskers, and the warm patch on the windowsill above the chip shop.

They swapped before the tide turned. Pepper spent the afternoon learning to taste with her feet, and Bertram spent it sitting bolt upright on the sill, furious and blissful in equal measure, his mantle sagging into the sun. At six the lid came up again. They climbed out and went back to their own shapes without ever quite agreeing whose shape had been the better one.

A student from the art school drew them that autumn, on the back of a tide table, four small pink studies pinned up in the net shed for anyone to laugh at. Pepper is the one at the bottom left, looking smug. Bertram is the one at the top, looking as though he has been asked to move house.