Black line drawing of a tattoo design in a traditional style, showing a hand holding a letter with a heart, two roses, leaves and a butterfly, on a tracing sheet.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Hand holding envelope with roses and butterfly

Traditional · Black and grey · Flash

A hand and wrist, cuffed at the sleeve, hold an envelope marked with a heart, with a rose and leafy sprig on either side and a butterfly above. The drawing uses bold black outlines and fine internal detail on the petals and leaves, with no shading. The design is set on a pale translucent sheet, with the motifs arranged around the central envelope.

Traditional Botanical Hand Envelope Heart Rose Leaves Butterfly Wrist

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The 6.52 has gone and taken the last of the rain with it, so I am sat on the bench under the canopy with the timetable on my knee, writing this on the back of the Sunday services because I could not find my good paper. Mrs Pryce from the buffet says the signal box at Ashcombe will be shut by Christmas, and I told her that is the kind of thing she said about the footbridge.

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You will remember the envelope I left in the tea caddy. I put it there the morning you went to Cardiff, flap tucked under, with a heart pressed into the wax like a thumbprint in butter. I had meant to post it. Instead I kept it, and then I kept it some more, the way you keep a rose pressed in a hymn book until the petals go the colour of weak tea.

Yesterday Dilys brought her nephew's new drawings round for me to look at. He has been learning from a man above the bookies on Station Road who does the old sailors' designs, all swallows and anchors. He showed me one of a hand holding a letter, two roses fat as cabbages either side, and a moth hovering over the top as if it had lost its connection. The wrist had a cuff like a shirt sleeve, and I thought of your coat on the bench that afternoon. I asked him to trace it for me. He said it was for a customer. I said I was the customer.

So here is the thing I should have said at the barrier. The envelope is still in the caddy. I have sent this one instead, and I pressed the heart onto the flap myself with the end of my front door key, which leaves a mark like a small bruise but the right shape. If the 9.10 is on time you will read this on the platform at Ashcombe and you will not need to answer. I will be the woman with the umbrella who has stopped waiting for a train.