Shirtless man with light hair covering his face with both hands, showing a black and grey Japanese-style sleeve on one arm and a blackwork tree line on the other arm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Man with tattooed arms, hands over face

Japanese · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A shirtless man with light, swept-back hair stands against a plain grey wall with both hands covering his face. His left arm carries a full sleeve of black and grey linework with swirling clouds and wave-like motifs, and a dark tree line runs down his right forearm and upper arm. The soft, directional light and neutral background keep the focus on the tattoo work.

Japanese Blackwork Upper arm Forearm Chest Sleeve Cloud Swirl Tree Portrait

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The lift doors open on the fourth floor at twenty to three, and you already know the corridor will smell of antiseptic and cold toast. Sister Okafor has left a list in biro on the desk: bed nine wants his drip checked, bed twelve keeps asking for the window to be shut, and there is a bag of paperwork from surgery that nobody else will sign. You take the list because it is easier than thinking about the sky over the car park.

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Bed twelve belongs to Mrs Pryce, who sign-wrote shopfronts for thirty years and still traces letters on the blanket with one finger. She tells you the clouds outside are wrong tonight, stacked and swirling like the sea has been turned over and seen from underneath. You tell her it is only weather. She tells you that is what everyone says before they stop looking up.

Later, when the ward lights dim to their blue night setting, you stand at the window with a cup of tea going cold in your hand. Beyond the car park a row of trees is black against a grey that is nearly silver, and the wind pulls their tops over in long, patient waves. You count them the way she taught you, one at a time, the way you count breaths off a monitor.

At six the day staff arrive with their coats open and their rush. You hand over the list, every line ticked except the paperwork, which you leave for the morning. Mrs Pryce is asleep with one hand flat on the sheet, as though she is still lettering something onto it. You open the window a crack so the morning air can reach her, and above the trees the clouds are already coming apart at their edges, just as she said they would.