Japanese style koi fish with red and black scales swimming among waves and clouds, tattooed on an upper arm and shoulder.

Koi fish and waves on an upper arm

Japanese · Upper arm · Mixed · Photo

A large koi fish with red and black scales swims upward across the upper arm and shoulder, its head turned toward the top of the arm. Surrounding it are stylised cloud and wave shapes in black and grey, with a pale rising stream of water running through the composition. The shading is smooth and the scales are rendered with clear black and red edging, and the colour is mostly red and black with grey wash on the water.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tomasz,

Keep reading

The lift has been out since Tuesday, so I have been climbing fourteen floors with the shopping like a woman in a war film, and I have decided I am too old for it. Mrs Okafor on eleven says the council will fix it when the weather turns, which is what she said about the boiler in March. Anyway, you will want to hear about the fish.

Dylan from flat 6 came up on Thursday with a carrier bag held out in front of him like a lantern. Inside was a koi, red and black, as long as my forearm, turning slow circles in a few inches of brown water. He had won it at the summer fair and kept it in a washing-up bowl under the sink, which is not a life for anything. The bowl was cracked. He wanted to know if I had a bigger one. I did not, but I had the old tin bath that Dad used to soak his feet in, so we filled it from the kettle and the cold tap, and the fish settled as if it had been waiting for us to be sensible.

Then I did something foolish. The estate has a culvert behind the bins that runs down to the canal, and the water comes up through the grate when it rains. Dylan and I carried the bath down thirteen flights, because the lift was not working, and I will not describe my knees. At the grate the fish went still, then turned its face toward the rushing black water and went straight into it, pushing against the flow with its shoulders up, refusing to be carried.

Dylan asked if it would make it. I said it did not need to make it to the canal, only to keep going. Love, Mum

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