Close photo of a traditional style tattoo showing a cartoon man with slicked back hair, eyes closed, cradling an orange creature above a grey banner that reads FISH STICKS.

Man and Fish Sticks banner tattoo

Traditional · Mixed · Photo

A cartoon man with a pompadour and closed eyes rests his head on an orange creature with a face, set against a grey scroll banner lettered FISH STICKS. Bold black outlines define the figures and lettering, with flat orange and tan fills and grey shading on the banner. A dark web-like linework pattern sits at the upper left edge of the frame, and the tattoo fills most of the image.

Traditional Man Banner Lettering Web

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The fish came ashore in a split freezer crate on the ferry slip at Inchmurra, and by the time Donal Cairn reached it the gulls had already claimed the rest of the cargo. This one was different. It was orange and crumbed and about the length of a man's forearm, and it had a face: two round eyes, a mouth set in a firm line, and the look of someone who had been waiting a long time for a lift home. Donal carried it up the brae under his oilskin, because nobody else on the island would touch anything off the mainland boat without a receipt.

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His wife Isla said it would bring trouble, and it brought warmth instead. He set it on a folded towel beside the range, and in the evenings he sat in his chair with his cheek resting on its back and told it about the price of diesel, the sheep that had got into the kirk, and the two herons who had stolen the shed roof. The schoolteacher painted the words FISH STICKS on a strip of driftwood and nailed it above the door, since that was what the crate had said, and the creature answered to nothing else.

In February the sea shut the harbour for forty days. The tins ran out. Mrs Ruadh from the end cottage came knocking and asked, quietly, whether the thing by the range might be spared for her grandchildren, who were thin. Donal said no, then said he would think on it. That night the wind tore the driftwood sign from its nails and the stove went cold. In the morning the towel was empty, the window stood open, and on the step lay a line of herring, silver and cold, laid side by side as neatly as a schoolmaster's chalk. Donal still walks down to the slip each morning, and the gulls there have one eye each, the colour of a warm crust.