Colour tattoo on a lower leg showing a maneki-neko cat with a raised paw, a skull-patterned moth and red petals, in a traditional style.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Maneki-neko cat and skull moth on a calf

Traditional · Calf · Mixed · Photo

A lower leg carries a tattoo of a smiling maneki-neko cat with one paw raised, beside a moth with a skull marking on its back and a feathery antenna. Three red petal or flame shapes drift down the right side of the cat. Bold dark outlines are filled with flat pink, red, purple and grey tones, and the design sits centrally on the calf against a pink-tinted background.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The cat had sat on the gatepost since before the Pryces bought the orchard, chipped and grinning, one paw lifted as though it were calling someone in for tea. Nobody in the village could say who had put it there. Mara, who had picked Bramleys on the north rows three Augusts running, decided it was beckoning the lorry.

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The lorry came on the last Friday of the month to take the fruit to the press at Ledbury. Mr Pryce counted crates with a pencil behind his ear and did not look up when Mara asked about her wages. 'Ask the shed,' he said, nodding at the packing door. A death's-head moth had been dying slowly on the sill since dawn, its wings dusted grey, the skull on its back as neat as a seal on a letter.

She went in with the sums she had worked out in pencil on the back of a seed packet. Petals from the damson hedge drifted through the open door, red as sparks off a bonfire, and settled on the flour sacks. The moth lifted, flicked a feathered antenna at her, and dropped to the tin floor. Under the sill lay the cashbox, unlocked, and her envelope sat on top of it, already fat with notes.

She went back out to the gatepost. The cat grinned at her from under its red collar, paw raised, and for once the gesture looked less like a summons than a goodbye. Mara counted the money twice, tucked the envelope into her boot, and walked down the lane with petals caught in her hair, the orchard going gold behind her.

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