Black and grey moon phase tattoo running across the upper chest and shoulder, shown beside a lettering design reading from the beginning till the end.

Moon phases with 'from the beginning till the end'

Lettering · Shoulder · Black and grey · Photo

The top panel is a design sheet showing the words 'from the beginning till the end' in a script hand, with a vertical column of moon phases replacing some letters. The bottom panel is a photograph of a row of shaded moon phases curving along the upper chest and shoulder, from crescent to full moon. The moons are rendered in soft grey tones with textured shading, and the crop shows only skin and shoulder with no face.

Lettering Shoulder Chest Moon Moon phase Text

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

14th January. Pass closed again. Nine guests stranded, one drover's dog, and a curate who will not stop apologising for the snow. I have started a tally in chalk on the inside of the cellar door, one moon for each night, because my mother always said the moon keeps honest accounts when nobody else does.

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The first night there was only a paring of light over the Hallam ridge, thin as a clipped fingernail. Mr Oakes laughed and said it was no use to anyone. By the fourth night the curate was reading by it at the window, and the dog had stopped barking at the drifts. Each evening I draw whatever shape I see, and each evening the lit edge grows fuller, as though somebody up there were slowly filling in a word I cannot yet read.

On the ninth night the snowplough came over the top with its lamps swinging, and the moon stood round and white above the stable roof. We all crowded into the yard to watch it, breath steaming, and nobody wanted to be the first to go in.

Tonight the sky is clear and the moon is already thinning on its far side. I told the curate it would go down to nothing again before the month was out. He said it was the most cheerful thing anyone had told him all winter. I have left the chalk on the cellar door and begun counting the other way.