Black and grey realism tattoo on an upper arm showing a hooded grim reaper with a scythe in front of a gothic church and a gravestone.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Grim reaper and church on upper arm

Realism · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A hooded grim reaper holding a scythe sits in the foreground, with a gothic church and a gravestone behind it. The shading is smooth and detailed, with soft greys and deep blacks that give the robes and building a strong sense of depth. The tattoo covers the upper arm and part of the shoulder, and the composition is dominated by the figure on the lower half of the design.

Realism Upper arm Shoulder Grim reaper Scythe Hood

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The snow had shut the Sexton road by four, and the Black Hart had nine guests by supper, eight more than my father ever counted in January. The church stood across the lane with its spire lost in the white, and from the kitchen window I could see its lych gate if I wiped the glass with my sleeve.

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The stranger came in as the bell for compline rang across the lane, though nobody in the village had rung it since old Mr Pryor died. He shook the snow from a long grey cloak and asked for the room that looked onto the churchyard. I told him the sheets were damp. He said he had been kept waiting before and did not mind. He leaned a long curved blade, wrapped in sacking, against the settle, where it stood like a walking stick.

Upstairs I heard him pacing until the lamp guttered. In the morning the lane was clear and the churchyard lay smooth under fresh snow, every stone capped the same. Only one had been scraped bare, a headstone with letters I had read every day of my childhood and never once thought to spell out: RSI. Beside it, a long curve had been cut through the drift, running from the gate all the way to my back step.

I did not go out to look. I laid the table for nine and counted twice. Then I went to the settle, where the blade had been, and found the sacking folded neatly on the seat, still warm, with a tenth chair pulled up to the fire.