Coloured flash drawing of the cartoon character Milhouse hugging a purple backpack, with red lettering curving around him that reads This is what it feels like when doves cry.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Milhouse hugging a backpack with lyric lettering

Colour · Flash

A hand-coloured drawing on paper shows the cartoon character Milhouse in a blue cap and round glasses, hugging a purple backpack. The phrase This is what it feels like when doves cry is set in red lettering with shading, arcing around the figure above and below. The figure has bold dark outlines and is filled with yellow, blue, purple and green, over a pale wash background.

Dove Cartoon character

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Thursday, moored below Radcot lock. The doves on the lock-house roof have been going all morning, that low, drawn-out moan that sounds like someone sighing into a microphone. Dad says it's Prince, and that if I want a proper explanation I should ask Mum, who knows all his records by heart. Mum is in Gloucester until Sunday, so I am writing it down instead.

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Ollie has not put down his purple rucksack since the school trip. He fell off the towpath on Tuesday, went in up to his chest by the lock gates, and came out clutching it like a drowned puppy. The sandwiches were soggy but the rucksack was perfectly dry, because he had wrapped his spare jumper round the inside and tucked the lid under his chin. He has sat on the roof all afternoon with it hugged against his cheek, his glasses sliding down his nose, looking at the birds with enormous tragic eyes.

Mrs Hale came along the bank with her torch and her terrier and told us the doves are fine. They only make that noise before rain, she said, and they are never wrong. Dad looked at the sky, which was blue as a swimming pool, and said she was clearly mistaken, and then the first drops hit the cabin roof like gravel.

Ollie climbed down with the rucksack, soaked again, and sat on the step beside me. He wiped his glasses on his shirt and squinted at the grey sky over the willows. This, he said, is what it feels like. I asked him what, and he just pulled the purple bag closer and went back to listening to the birds.