Black and grey realism tattoo of a leaping bass breaking through splashing water on an upper arm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Leaping bass breaking through water

Realism · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A large bass fish with its mouth open rises diagonally across the limb, with a small lure visible at the top of its jaw. The fish is shaded in soft greys with fine highlights on the scales and fins, and splashes and water spray surround its lower body. The image is a close, straight-on photograph against a dark background, with the tattoo filling most of the frame.

Realism Upper arm Fish Splash Water

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The 17:42 is running forty minutes late, so you walk down the footbridge to the old river platform, where the timetable board has been painted over and nobody waits any more. Under the second bench a lure has been wedged between two slats, its hooks rusted to the colour of stewed tea. You work it free with a fingernail. The body is dark varnished wood with a painted lip, and someone has scratched the initials G.H. into the belly.

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Your grandfather fished the weir below this station every Saturday for thirty years. He said the good bass never jumped for the bait, only for the sun, and that the water ran white in March while the reeds leaned over the tail of the pool like old men listening. You remember him standing on the wall with his rod bent double, shouting at you to keep the line tight, and the fish coming clean out of the river with its mouth wide open, shaking its head as if the sky had insulted it.

The last time you saw him there, he had cast twice without a strike and was reeling in to change lures. Then the water broke near the reeds. He lifted the rod to strike, the line went slack, and the bass was gone. He laughed at the empty hook for a long time afterwards, and said it was the best fish he had ever lost.

You hold the lure over the rail now, the light going the colour of pewter. The speaker crackles that the train is approaching platform two. You drop G.H.'s lure into the brown water and watch the ring of its landing spread under the bridge until the reeds take it. Then you walk on to the far end of the platform, where the rail is low enough to lean over, the way he used to.