Black and grey dotwork tattoo of a brick lighthouse above a moustached man in a patterned collar, on the inner forearm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Lighthouse and moustached man on a forearm

Dotwork · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A brick lighthouse with a domed lantern room rises from the top of the design, with a small bird perched on the left edge. Below it, a stippled figure with a large moustache and a patterned collar and bow tie forms the lower part of the composition. The work is in black ink with fine dots and clean outlines, set against pale skin and a dark background.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The gull had been perched on my left shoulder since the vicar arrived, and I had decided not to mind it. I have stood on Gannet Head for a hundred and six years with a lantern for a hat and brick for a waistcoat, and nobody has ever asked me to a wedding. Then Pearl Ostler came up the cliff path in her mother's lace, carrying a fistful of thrift, and rapped on my door with the flat of her hand. I was invited whether I liked it or not.

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The reception was held in the chapel hall at the bottom of the lane, where the trestles smelled of herring and lamp oil. I was put by the window in a borrowed bow tie, tied for me by Pearl's grandfather with a good deal of muttering. The last man to fasten my collar was my own keeper, Abel Scarr, who died in 1931 with his hands still smelling of paraffin. Abel's great-grandson Tom stood up to make a speech, his voice shaking. The sea takes everything in the end, he said, but the light stays, and so will we.

When the dark came down, the couple walked out onto the headland to watch the boats. My lamp had been dark for three years, since the automatic light went in across the bay. Pearl had asked the council nicely and been refused, so she had asked me instead. Somewhere under my brick ribs the old mechanism caught and turned, and I let the beam go out over the water one more time.

The gull lifted off my shoulder without a word. Pearl put both hands over her mouth. Tom laughed so loudly the moored boats rang their bells, and the beam swept across the two of them, the lace and the sleeve, then on past the rocks to where the fleet was coming home. It was the best night I have had in a century, and I did not once think about the weather.

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From the plentytattoo archive, uploaded by a user. Is this your work? Ask for credit or removal.