White silhouette of a mermaid with flowing hair, a curled tail and one arm raised, shown as a tattoo design on a pale teal background.

Mermaid silhouette tattoo design

Colour · Flash

A solid white silhouette of a mermaid with long, flowing hair that curls at the ends, one arm raised above her head and the other reaching down. Her tail sweeps diagonally across the lower half of the frame, with a fanned fin at the tip. The shape has no internal linework or shading and sits on a flat pale teal background.

Mermaid Silhouette Hair Tail Fin Arm

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell,

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You will not believe what the tide brought up on Tuesday. Mr Pryce from the pier shop swore it was a drowned sailor's oilcloth, but when I went down with the lamp it was a painted sheet of tin, the kind they used for the old dance hall sign before the gale took it. Half the letters were gone. What was left said MERMAID BALLROOM in red, and under that a woman with one arm lifted to the sky, as if she were calling a boat in.

I have taken it up to the back room of the Ocean Rest and hung it where the piano used to stand. The band plays Saturdays now, a trumpet and a fellow on drums who keeps forgetting his brushes. When the lamps are low, the pale paint of her hair catches the light from the window and she seems to be swimming through the floorboards toward the sea. Ada from the laundry says it is bad luck to hang a figure facing the room, but Ada says a lot of things.

I walked out past the breakwater last night with the tin under my arm, meaning to give it back to the water. I did not. I stood on the wet stones while the tide came over my boots and thought, somebody painted this to be danced with, not drowned under. So I am keeping her. Come Saturday and bring your good shoes. We will have the first waltz for her, and you can tell me all about the Ferris girl's wedding, which I know you are dying to do.

Yours by the lamp, Bea