Colour neo-traditional tattoo of an ornately patterned hot air balloon on the outer thigh, with the word freedom in black script trailing from its basket.

Hot air balloon and freedom script on thigh

Neo-trad · Thigh · Colour · Photo

A hot air balloon with an ornate envelope of scalloped bands, florals and dotted detail sits high on the outer thigh. Its bold black outlines and soft shading are filled with salmon, mustard, teal and muted green, with black shading across the upper envelope. A thin black script reading freedom curves down from the basket, and the blurred outdoor background is out of focus.

Neo-trad Lettering Thigh Hot air balloon Freedom Script Ornament Pattern Basket

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The envelope came back from the cleaners with a scorch mark over the third scallop, so I've spent two days unpicking the teal panel and sewing it back in. You'll laugh, Maud, but I did most of it on an upturned crate at the back of the stall while the rain drummed on the tarpaulin. Nobody buys a balloon in November. I sat there with the nylon across my knees and thought about your grandfather.

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He used to sell rides from the field behind the cattle market, before the council moved everything under the ring road. Every Saturday he'd pump hot air into that same mustard and salmon cloth, the dotted piping I'd stitched by hand in 1979, and the basket would knock gently on its cables while children argued over who got to stand in it first. He chalked a single word on the ribbon that trailed from the basket every morning. He said it meant the same thing in every language. That was a lie, but it stuck, and half the town still calls the field Freedom Corner.

Last week a gust got under the envelope in the car park and dragged it three streets before it snagged on a chimney. Nobody was hurt. The rain came down harder while we worked it loose, and a man in a green cagoule held the rope and told me he'd never seen anything so bright in such a grey week. I didn't correct him.

I'm posting you the old basket cord with this letter. Tie a knot in it, pull it tight, and then let it go on the first windy day you get. Love, Nan.