Realism style tattoo on a forearm showing a grey metallic capsule with red lenses and a red nautical star.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Metal capsule and red star on forearm

Realism · Forearm · Mixed · Photo

The tattoo shows a grey metallic capsule or canister with riveted panels, three red circular lenses and a large red nautical star across its centre. The linework is bold and the metal is rendered with soft shading and highlights, giving it a three-dimensional look. Black and grey tones dominate the capsule, while the red star and lenses provide the main colour against a pale skin background on a wooden table.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Sit down, the lot of you, and mind the gull's nest, it's a bad-tempered bird. You want the story of the Ada's float, do you? Not the bell, not the drowned boy. The float. Old Tomas Vell had it made in the forge behind the net loft from boiler plate off a scrapped steamer. Eleven rivets a side, and he counted them twice because he didn't trust the smith. Inside went a paraffin lamp and a clockwork flasher. Three panes of red glass came from a chandler in Lerwick who swore they'd outlast the Admiralty. On the front he painted a red star, the sort you'd see on a bow, so the fleet would know whose gear was whose in the fog.

Keep reading

The storm came in at the back end of October. Eleven boats were out past the Skerries, the Ada among them, with Tomas at the wheel and his daughter Elsie beside him, sixteen and certain she knew the water better than her father. The float went over to mark the long line. Tomas swore after that he'd seen the three lights flash through the rain, one, two, three, steady as a hymn, and the rest of the fleet steered on them home.

The float was never found. The Ada came in with her rail stove and Elsie with a split lip and a face that didn't say much for a year. Tomas went to sea until the day his heart gave out, and he never once went out without a red lamp in the wheelhouse.

Ask me where the float is now and I'll tell you nobody knows. But on a north wind, when the tide's making, look out past the point and you'll see three red lights blinking, slow and patient, keeping count of who's come home. Now off with you, it's past your bedtime and the water's turning.

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