Black fine line tattoo of a bird with outstretched wings built from circles and radiating lines, placed on the forearm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Geometric bird in flight on forearm

Fine line · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A bird with outstretched wings is drawn in thin black linework on pale skin. The wings are built from overlapping circles and fanned lines that give a geometric, constructed look, with dotted accents along the edges. The design is shown in black ink only, centred on the forearm against a plain background.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell,

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The weather has held since Tuesday, so we have shot the nets twice a day and the hold is nearly full. Skipper Gall says we will be in Lowestoft by Saturday if the wind stays westerly, though he has said that every week since Easter. I have been keeping the log in the back of the chart drawer, where the damp can't get at it, and I have been drawing circles in the margins with the dividers, the way Mr Pryce taught us at the technical college. Circles for the grounds, fans of pencil for the bearings, and a dot wherever the boat turned.

There is a gull that has followed us since we left the Dogger. Big-headed herring gull, one wing bent where something caught it. Every morning at first light it comes up off the starboard quarter and wheels over the wheelhouse three times before it settles on the mast. I took a bearing on it the first week to see if it was going anywhere in particular. It wasn't. It went round in the same wide ring over us, as if the sea had been measured out for it, and I could have drawn the circle before it flew it.

Yesterday I stopped taking the bearings. I put the dividers in the drawer and let the bird steer. Gall grumbled, then shrugged and shot the nets where the gull dipped, and we had the best haul of the trip. I don't know what that proves, except that a thing can be exact without anyone writing it down.

I have kept one sheet for you, with the circles and a little bird I drew with the dividers' point. Pin it above your bed so you know where I am. I'll be home Saturday, weather permitting.

Love, Dad

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