Enlarged with AI from a smaller original
Lion head tattoo on the ribs
Blackwork · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo
A profile of a lion's head facing right, with a full, flowing mane drawn in loose, scratchy black strokes. The solid black shading fills the mane and the shadowed side of the face, while the muzzle and cheek are left as open skin tone. The tattoo sits on the ribs and is shown in black ink only, against a plain background of skin and grey fabric.
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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction
Dear Tom, the lamp man came up from the Ellerby shaft on Tuesday with coal dust in every crease of his face and asked after you by name, which tells you the whole pit is still talking about your row with the overman. Mam says to tell you she has put your boots by the range and will not have them moved.
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Now, the thing I actually want to write about. Da has been on the back step every evening since the lamps went out, scraping at a lump of seam coal with his penknife. Last week it came out as a lion's head. I laughed at him, which I shouldn't have. He didn't look up. He said the mane was the hard part, that you cannot make hair out of rock, only strokes, quick and rough, the way a man sweeps a face with a pick when he is too tired to be careful.
He finished it on Sunday. The shadow side he left black, the way coal stays black when it has never seen daylight, and the cheek and muzzle he rubbed with his thumb until they caught the lamplight like a wet stone. He says a lion is only half lit in any dark, and that is the truth of it. He wants you to have it. He has wrapped it in one of your old socks, so mind you do not drop it on the train.
Come home at Christmas if the trains run. Da will pretend he hasn't been waiting, and I will let him.
Your sister, Nell
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