Painted tattoo design of a howling wolf in front of a crescent moon, with bold black linework and watercolour splashes in pink, orange, green and blue, shown on white paper beside coloured pencils.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Howling wolf and moon design

Mixed · Flash

A wolf with its head tilted back and mouth open in a howl, set in front of a dark crescent moon with a blue and green wash. The wolf is drawn with bold black linework and swirling inner details, and its mane flows into flame-like strands in red, orange, yellow and pink. Loose watercolour splashes in magenta, orange and pink spread across the white paper around the figure, with coloured pencils and ink bottles placed at the edges of the frame.

Wolf Howling Moon Splash Watercolour Paint splash Pencil Flame

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The lift is out again, so I am writing this on the back of the notice that says so and posting it through the office door, since nobody there answers the phone. You will want to know about the noise. It was not the lift this time. It started after two on Tuesday morning, a long low sound rolling up over the car park from the roof of Hollins House, and half the block sat up in bed to listen.

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I took the stairwell up with my torch, fourteen floors with my hip complaining at every landing. Up top I found Danny Reece from the fourth floor, sitting cross-legged on the felt with a jam jar of water, a tin of blue paint, and a bundle of coloured pencils he had nicked from the primary school. He had painted a dark ring of moon on the parapet and was flicking magenta down the wall as if the bricks had asked for it. He said the wolf had to be loud because nobody on this estate ever looks up, and I could not argue with him.

I sat with him while he got the flames right. Then he tipped his head back, opened his mouth and howled, and I swear the flats below answered him, one window at a time, kitchen lights first and then bedroom lights, until the whole east face of the block was glowing like a lantern.

By the time the sun came up, the pink paint had dried on the concrete in long streaks, and Danny was asleep against the water tank with a pencil still in his hand. I have put the kettle on and written to the council to say the lift can stay broken for now. Yours sincerely, Joan Ashby, flat 22.