Colour tattoo of a howling wolf beneath a pink and blue galaxy with a crescent moon and stars, on the forearm.

Howling wolf and galaxy on a forearm

Realism · Forearm · Mixed · Photo

A dark wolf sits at the bottom of a diamond-shaped panel, head raised as if howling. Above it, a pink and blue nebula fills the background, with a crescent moon on the left and small white stars scattered across the sky. The wolf is shaded in greys and black, while the sky uses smooth blended colour, so the contrast between the solid animal and the soft galaxy is clear.

Realism Forearm Wolf Moon Crescent moon Galaxy Star Night sky Nebula

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Sit down, sit down, and mind the chair with the bad leg. No, the wolf won't come in. He's been gone these forty years, and he never did care for the foxtrot anyway. The Palais on Ardley Street had paraffin lamps then, and the band was four lads from Bolton who thought they were the Americans.

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Dolly Ferris, the caretaker's girl, found the grey pup in a tea chest on the goods platform the winter the mill closed. She named him Nightfall because he only opened his eyes after dark. Every Saturday he sat in the wings and waited for the saxophone to reach its high note, and then he'd lift his head and answer it. The dancers would stop mid-step and look up at the skylight, where the paint had worn thin enough to show a crescent moon pressed against the glass.

The owner wanted him gone. Dolly didn't argue. She carried him up the iron ladder to the roof on a Saturday in October, when the sky over the chimneys had gone the colour of a bruise healing, pink where the mill smoke caught the lamplight and blue deepening to ink, stars thick as spilt salt. Nightfall put his head back and howled, long and steady. Down in the hall the music faltered, then carried on, and nobody could say why the floor had gone so quiet.

When the last couple had gone home, the moon was a thin silver paring over the chimney, and Dolly swept the boards herself, humming the note the wolf had given her. So if you stand by the side door with your hand on the cold brick and the band has packed up, you might still hear it come down off the roof. That's not the wind, love. That's him saying goodnight.