Black and grey tattoo of a grinning Cheshire cat head atop a skeletal cat with a curling tail, on a leg.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Grinning Cheshire cat over a skeletal cat

Thigh · Black and grey · Photo

The tattoo shows a grinning cat head with pointed ears and a wide toothy smile, set on a long spine-like neck above a skeletal cat sitting in profile with its tail curling to the left. The linework is fairly bold and the shading uses dark areas and grey tones to give the ribs, skull and fur texture. The design is in black ink only and is centred on the skin with plenty of space around it.

Thigh Cheshire cat Cat Skeleton Ribs Tail Skull

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Marguerite,

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You asked why I never tell the story about the cat at the Harwich crossing, so here it is, though you must promise not to laugh at the bit about the grin. It was a wet Tuesday in March and the lorry from Antwerp had a crate in the back marked glassware. Inside, under straw, sat a little wooden cat, a skeleton of one, every rib painted, its tail curled round to the left like a question mark. Above the ribs, on a neck no longer than a broom handle, there was a grinning head with pointed ears, the kind of smile you see in old picture books just before the nightmares start.

Sergeant Okafor wanted to log it as contraband carving and send it to the back office. I said the paperwork could wait ten minutes while I looked at it. The driver, a man called Piet who had been smoking since Dover, watched me the whole time as if I might bite. I turned the thing over and found a brass tag pressed into its base, worn so smooth I could barely read the name: Mirela, Ljubljana, 1961. Someone had carried it a long way.

I wrote the declaration that afternoon and let it through with a note that said gift. Nobody asks a customs officer what she believes. But on the drive home I kept thinking about that smile, how it had outlasted everything underneath it, and I laughed out loud at a red light, which is the thing I was going to tell you about.