Colour tattoo of a black mermaid silhouette swimming through teal and pink bubbles, with two small fish silhouettes, on the side of the ribs.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Mermaid silhouette with teal bubbles on ribs

Ribs · Mixed · Photo

The tattoo shows a solid black silhouette of a mermaid swimming to the right, with her tail trailing behind her, beside two small black fish silhouettes. Behind and around the figures are soft teal, blue and pink bubbles and wispy water shapes that fade out toward the left. The image is a close side view of the torso, with a purple top along the upper edge and a plain grey background.

Ribs Mermaid Silhouette Bubble Fish Water Sea

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The corridor lights on the children's ward dim to amber at eleven, and you walk the length of it with the trolley's left wheel ticking. Past bay three, the fish tank in the family room is the only blue thing in the building. You stop there every night because the girl in bed six, who is seven and has been here since March, asked you to check on the angelfish before you go off.

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Tonight the tank is quiet except for the filter, which sends a column of bubbles past the glass to break against the ceiling tiles. You press your palm to the cool pane. A shadow crosses the gravel: a slim shape with a long fanned tail, cut black by the lamp, swimming the way your nan used to swim out past the groynes at Saltburn before her hip gave out. You know it is only the plastic ornament the day staff hang by the pump, but it moves whenever the water moves.

Handover is at seven. You have a list: obs on bed four, a cannula to check in bay two, the sharps bin to swap. But the girl's notes say she asked for one thing before her transfer on Friday, which was that somebody keep the mermaid swimming. You write it on the back of your hand in biro so you will not forget, then notice the ink is the same blue as the bubbles.

At ten to seven you go back. The cleaner has switched the tank light off, and the shape has slipped into the dark at the back of the gravel. You reach in and lift the lid, flick the switch, and the little black fish turn toward the light. The mermaid comes swimming out of the shadow, right to left, trailing her tail through the bubbles that never quite stop rising.