Greyscale realism tattoo of a sequence of moon phases running down the inner forearm of a person in a red t-shirt.

Moon phases down a forearm

Realism · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A row of seven moon phases, from thin crescent to nearly full, runs down the inner forearm in a straight diagonal line. Each moon is shaded in soft greys with subtle gradients that suggest the cratered surface and the shadowed edges of the lunar disc. The plain red top and wooden fence behind the arm keep the focus on the tattoo, which is shown on a relaxed hand held out to the side.

Realism Forearm Moon Moon phase Crescent Celestial

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Tam Reddaway had chalked the moon on the galley bulkhead every night since leaving Ullapool, a row of small grey discs beside the cooker where the grease never quite wiped off. By the third night the sea had settled enough that she could stand at the stove without bracing her hip against the rail, and the cook's boy, Oddie, was already asking when the next full one would fall.

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"Seven nights," she said, cracking eggs one-handed into the pan. "Crescent tonight, thin as a fingernail paring. By the weekend it'll be fat enough to bowl with." Oddie counted on his fingers, lips moving, the way his gran had taught him to count the boats in from the pier. The skipper, Ruairidh Coll, claimed the moon was for men who couldn't read a tide table. Tam had said nothing to that, because the tables were printed by people who had never hauled a net of mackerel at four in the morning.

Later, when the galley vent rattled and the dishes slid in their racks, she carried tea up to the wheelhouse. The sea was black and heaving, and low over the stern hung the thinnest sliver of light, so pale it seemed to be drawn on the dark with a fine nib. Ruairidh took his mug without looking away from the glass.

On the way back down Oddie asked why the moon got smaller and then bigger again, as if it couldn't make up its mind. Tam told him it wasn't shrinking at all, only turning its face away from them a bit at a time, and that the trick was to keep watching the part you could still see. Then she picked up the chalk and drew the next one on the bulkhead, a little fuller than the last.