Colour tattoo of a pink koi and a white cat with blue Japanese wave patterns across a forearm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Koi and wave cat on a forearm

Japanese · Forearm · Mixed · Photo

A pink and red koi carp curls around a dark blue wave pattern, with a white cat's head emerging from the lower part of the design. Bold black outlines define the scales, fins and waves, which are filled with smooth colour and white highlights. The tattoo wraps across the forearm against a dark background.

Japanese Forearm Koi Fish Wave Cat

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Nobody in Skerry Bay could agree on when the cat first came down to the harbour wall, only that by the time the boats were cleaning their nets for winter it had a habit of sitting on the bollard nearest the pool and watching the water as if it owed it money.

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The pool held one fish that the fishermen called Old Vermilion, a carp as long as a man's arm, red as a lifeboat, that came up to the surface whenever a boat went out and never once came up when one came home empty. Ada Lind, who mended the nets for her father, swore it had been coming up for her since she was small, and that it had been sulking since her father's boat, the Gannet, went over the bar in a squall and did not come back.

Ada went down to the pool on the first grey morning of the storm season with a bowl of pilchards and nothing to say. The cat was already there, its white face pressed flat against the cold stone, and the water beside it rose in long dark swells that curled over themselves like waves drawn on paper. The carp came up slowly, scales catching what little light there was, and looked at her with one gold eye.

"Take the boat out," she told it, though she was not sure whether she was speaking to the fish or the cat. "Bring him home or tell me where he is."

The cat yawned. The carp turned once, a full circle through the blue water, and when it was done the swell beneath the wall had flattened into a calm lane running straight out past the bar. Ada stood still, bowl in hand, and waited. At dusk the Gannet came up that lane, her sail torn and her crew shouting, and the cat was gone from the bollard, leaving a small wet paw print on the stone.