Black outline heart on the ankle holding a red high-heeled shoe with a red bow, with grey shading inside the heart.

Heart and red high heel on ankle

Ankle · Mixed · Photo

A black outlined heart sits on the lower leg near the ankle, with a red high-heeled shoe and red bow inside it. The heart is drawn with a bold black line, and the inside is lightly shaded in grey around the shoe. The red accents stand out against the grey and skin tones, and the design is centred on the leg.

Ankle Heart Bow

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The heel had snapped clean through, the way cheap stilettos do when they are asked to cross a wet car park, and Ruth Okafor set the shoe on the bench as if it might bite. Red patent, one buckle, a grosgrain bow stitched to the strap, the ribbon gone grey at the knot. The claim ticket was stapled to the insole, number 417, collect by Friday. It was Monday.

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She worked the old block free with a chisel and found a pencilled heart inside the counter, drawn twice, the second line pressed so hard it had torn the lining. Beneath it someone had written two initials and crossed them out. Ruth cut a new heel from beech, glued it, and spent longer than she should have on the bow, unpicking the knot and tying it again so the loops sat level. The radio on the shelf played the shipping forecast and then a song about a train.

Friday came and went. On Saturday a man in a damp donkey jacket stood at the counter and said the number back to her without looking at the ticket. He checked the heel with his thumb, nodded, and then asked whether she had ever mended a shoe that had been mended before. She said she had mended most of them. He paid in coins, counting them twice, and left the shoe on the counter as if he had forgotten it.

Ruth put it back on the shelf with the others, the new heel pale against the old red. On Monday she found the bow retied, tighter than she had left it, the loops level and the grey ribbon tucked neatly under, and on the bench a folded card with a heart drawn on it in biro, its outline gone over three times.