Black and white photo of a solid black heart outline with a paw print on the side of a person's torso, in a blackwork style.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Heart and paw print on the side

Blackwork · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

A bold black outline of a heart curves across the side of the torso, with a solid black paw print sitting inside its right-hand edge. The linework is thick and even, and the paw pads are filled solid black with no shading. The image is black and white, with dark clothing at the top and part of another tattoo visible at the right edge.

Blackwork Ribs Heart Paw print Paw Outline Animal

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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

You find the dog on the fourteenth-floor landing at ten past six, sitting outside flat 41 as though she has an appointment. She is grey around the muzzle, her lead trails behind her like a dropped thought, and her tag reads MABEL above a phone number with the last two digits rubbed away. The lift has been out since Tuesday, so you climb, and she waits for you at every turn.

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Flat 41 belongs to Mr Dunmore, who went into the hospice on Sunday with a bag of library books and no plans to return them. You have his spare key because you are the caretaker and nobody else in the block remembers where the keys are kept. The hallway smells of stewed tea and wet fur. Mabel walks past you into the kitchen and sits by the back door, facing the handle, waiting for someone who is not coming up the stairs.

You ring the number on the tag. It goes to a voicemail in a bright, busy voice that promises to call back at the weekend. You think of the notice pinned by the bins about pets on the upper floors, and of the form you would have to fill in, and you put the phone away. Going down, you take the stairs one tread at a time, her nails ticking on the concrete, and at every landing she stops to nose at the dust on the sill.

At the ground floor door the cold air comes in under it, and she lifts one paw and presses it flat against the glass, leaving a dark print that lasts a few seconds before it fades. By Friday she knows the route to your flat on the ninth floor without being shown, and the lift still isn't working, and you have stopped minding the climb.