Enlarged with AI from a smaller original
Heart, cross, candle and flower designs
Neo-trad · Black and grey · Flash
Two separate line drawings sit on tracing paper: a heart outlined and filled with roses and leaves beside a cross, and a candle with flame, leaves and a patterned base next to a small flower. The linework is bold and even, with dotted circles framing parts of the designs and no shading or colour. A pen and a yellow pencil lie across the top left corner of the sheet.
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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction
Tom, the candle you asked about has not gone out yet. I lit it on Tuesday, the night the Ellen Rowe was reported missing off the Dogger, and I have kept it going since with the stub of the Advent taper and a fresh wick Mrs Haskett gave me for nothing. Mam would have scolded me for wasting wax on the window ledge, but she is in the churchyard now and the ledge is where she used to sit to watch the harbour.
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I have pinned your drawing of the heart beside Dad's old cross above the door, where the lamp used to hang. The paper has gone soft from my thumbs. The dotted rings you always drew around things, for luck you said, are still there in the margin. I counted them last night while the flame stood straight as a pin. Twenty-two. Nine on the left and thirteen on the right, and it is the thirteen I trust.
The cook on the Crown says a flame that leans is a ship coming in. This morning it leaned hard towards the sea, and I stood there in my apron with flour to the elbows and let myself believe it. Write the moment the Rowe makes port, even if it is only to say the coffee is bad and the captain still snores. I will keep the wick trimmed. Your loving sister, Nell.
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