Traditional-style moth tattoo with black outlines and soft pink and grey shading on the back of a hand.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Moth tattoo on the back of a hand

Traditional · Hand · Mixed · Photo

A moth with outstretched wings is tattooed on the back of a hand, with its body and antennae sitting near the knuckles. The bold black outlines are filled with pink, grey and dusky tones, and the wings carry dot and bar patterns. The hand is raised against a dark background, so the tattoo is the main focus of the composition.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom,

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The lamps on the Ferris wheel went up again last night and the whole field came alive with moths, hundreds of them, pale ones and the dusky pink-grey kind with spots on their wings like dabs of paint. Dad says they come for the heat and the cheap bulbs. Mrs Penhallow in the candyfloss van swears they are the souls of people who lost at the shies. I told her she should stop reading the fortune cards and sell more toffee apples.

We are in Wolverhampton until Saturday, then on to the coast. The big top has a split seam and Dad is patching it by torchlight, cursing like a sailor. Ruth the knife-thrower has her act back after the business with the wet rope, though she still won't let anyone stand in the left-hand corner of the board.

I kept one of the moths. It was dying on the lamp-glass, so I put it in a jam jar with a sprig of mint and a scrap of cloth. This morning it had climbed to the lid and lay with its wings open against the glass, very still, as if it were waiting for the lights to come back on. I've left the jar on the caravan step where the sun hits it. Come home at Christmas if you can. The moth is nothing, I know, but I wanted you to see it before the fair packs up.

Love, Nell

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