Grey wave and scale tattoo on a hip
Other · Black and grey · Photo
A bare torso and hip are shown in a close crop, with a black and grey tattoo of a curling wave over a field of scales. The linework is dark and the shading is soft, giving the scales a subtle three-dimensional look. The tattoo sits against a pale background, and the person's hand rests on the green, sparkly, scale-printed leggings beneath it.
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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction
The sea did not forgive my mother for taking the lighthouse keeper's boat, so when the winter storms came down the coast of Carrow Haven she sent me to the rocks with a lantern and a basket of salt herring. Nobody else in the village would go. The fishermen said the wave off the point had a face in it, and that it had been watching the harbour since before the church had a roof.
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I waited until the tide turned, then climbed out past the broken groyne and set the lantern on a stone. The water rose in a long grey curl, the way a cloth lifts off a table, and inside its folds I saw scales, thousands of them, each one shaped like the bowl of a spoon, overlapping down into the dark. The wave did not speak. It simply lowered itself until the herring were taken from my hands, and I felt the cold of it run up my wrists like a bracelet being fastened.
When I came home my mother had already scrubbed the step. She asked what the sea had said. I told her it had asked for more herring, and that I had promised to bring it every full moon. She looked at the bracelet of salt on my skin for a long time, then nodded and handed me the lantern. The storms have not come to Carrow Haven since, and on the night of each full moon the water shines green under the point, as if something has put on its best dress and gone walking.
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