Black cat silhouette on the upper arm filled with the word MEOW in orange and red lettering, in a bold lettering style.

MEOW lettering in a cat silhouette

Lettering · Upper arm · Mixed · Photo

The tattoo shows a solid black cat silhouette with pointed ears, with the word MEOW set in large block letters cut into the body. The letters are shaded with orange and red gradients, while the silhouette is filled with dense black ink. The design sits centred on the inner upper arm against a plain pale background.

Lettering Upper arm Cat Silhouette

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The snow has been falling since the afternoon, and by the time you bolt the door of the Cold Harbour inn the lane has vanished under it. Mrs Ashdown is already at the hearth, shovelling coal with one hand and holding a saucer of milk in the other, while the grey cat sits on the settle as though it booked the room. You don't ask its name. Nobody in Barrow Dale asks the cat anything.

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Dinner is mutton and a quarrel about the stove. The carrier's passenger, a man who has talked about his pension since Keswick, wants to know why an inn needs a cat at all. Mrs Ashdown says it came up from the cellar in March and has never explained itself. Every time a log pops, the cat turns its head towards the grate and waits, as if the flames owe it an answer.

Around midnight a gust drives a spatter of sparks through the open damper and onto the sign hanging by the door, a black cat painted on board with its name cut out in block capitals. The letters take the light first. M and E and O and W run from yellow to red as the paint blisters and curls. You expect the cat to bolt. Instead it walks out into the drift, sits square beneath the sign, and watches the fire until the last letter gutters out, leaving only the black shape against the snow.

By morning the sign is gone, the lane is a smooth white hump, and Mrs Ashdown is pouring tea as if nothing happened. The cat is back on the settle, washing one paw. When you ask what the sign used to say, she nods at the animal. "It was only ever the one word, love," she says, and the cat, on cue, says it.