Black line drawing of a Japanese foo dog surrounded by swirling clouds and flowing mane, drawn as a tattoo design on cream paper.

Japanese foo dog with swirling clouds

Japanese · Black and grey · Flash

A black ink line drawing of a snarling foo dog, a lion-like guardian figure, shown mid-stride with its head turned toward the viewer. Its body is wrapped in stylised cloud and wind swirls, with a long curling tail and a flowing mane rendered in fine, even linework without shading. The design is drawn in black on a cream background and is centred on the page with the swirls filling the upper and lower areas.

Japanese Cloud Swirl Mane Tail

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The rain has been coming sideways off the harbour since the lamps were lit, and it is your job to keep the stall dry. Your aunt's tarpaulin sags over the trestles of ginger, dried squid and paper lanterns. Beside the gate, the stone guardian sits on its plinth with its jaws open, the carved curls of its mane dark with wet. Nobody on the market believes it watches anything. Nobody has ever asked it to.

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A boy from the fish stalls comes running with a cardboard box that is crying. Inside is a kitten, soaked to the bone, its ribs showing through the fur like the slats of a basket. You tuck it under your coat. The old men argue over whether a cat brought into the market is a bad omen, and you tell them the stone dog has never minded what comes through the gate.

Then the wind swings round off the water. The tarpaulin tears from its hooks and streams up over the arch like a cloud let loose. For a moment the carved swirls on the guardian seem to lift, the stone smoke rising to meet the grey sky. You grab the pole and haul the cloth down, and when you look up the statue's head has turned toward you, as though it has been waiting for someone to ask.

By morning the rain has stopped. The mane of the stone dog still holds a single bead of water in one of its curls, and the kitten sleeps on a folded sack beside the ginger, purring at nothing. Your aunt counts the takings and says the gate kept its promise. You do not tell her that you made it, and that the dog only lent you its wind.