Black and grey forearm tattoo of a grinning skeleton holding a swirl lollipop, with two pale faced characters below in a sketchy illustrative style.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Grinning skeleton and characters on a forearm

Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A grinning skeletal figure holding a swirl lollipop sits at the top of a tall panel, with two pale faced characters with dark eyes stacked below it. The linework is bold and sketchy, with hatched shading and loose stray lines around the edges of the panel. The tattoo is entirely black and grey and wraps along the length of a forearm against a white top and dark shorts.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Ottilie,

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The fair came back to Saltmarsh Cross on the third tide of the year, and Mr Grin came with it, rolled up in oilcloth on the back of the cart just as you warned me he would be. I unwrapped him on the chapel steps while the gulls argued over a dropped pasty. He is still grinning, teeth and all, the same way he grinned at your grandfather when the sea still had a shore to reach.

The two pale ones are the lodgers now. Mrs Vance pins them up in the ferry office window every morning so the travellers can see who they will be sharing the crossing with. Their eyes are too dark for daylight, she says, which is why the children hide behind the bollards when they pass.

Last night the lamp guttered and I found the swirl lollipop in the wrong hand, passed from the skeleton to the taller of the two, as though someone had tried to settle a quarrel with a sweet. I left it where it lay. In the morning it was back on its stick in Mr Grin's fist, and the pale faces had turned a little towards the sea.

I am not frightened of them. I am only careful. Write back and tell me whether the old tide-clock still runs fast, and whether you think the grin means welcome or warning. I have started to think it means both, which is the only honest answer I know.

Yours in brine, Fen

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