Photograph of a large surreal tattoo on a person's upper back and shoulder, showing a glowing blue night sky with a moon and small planets framed by swirling brown organic shapes, with a tiny standing

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Night sky and moon across a shoulder blade

Back · Mixed · Photo

The tattoo covers the upper back and shoulder blade, with a deep blue night sky containing a pale moon, two small planets and teal-edged swirls at its centre. A dark, swirling brown and black frame surrounds the sky, and a small human silhouette stands on the lower edge of the scene. The soft, blended shading gives the piece a painted, glowing look against the skin.

Back Shoulder Moon Night sky Planet Star Space Swirl Silhouette Figure

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Walter,

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The moon came up over the chapel roof last night so large and white that Mrs Pryce ran out with her cat under one arm, certain the sky had cracked. I told her it was only the moon, but I stood on the back step with her a long while all the same, because you cannot blame anyone for looking.

You asked in your last letter whether the lads at the mill still talk about the rocket men. They do. Every Tuesday Jack Heald reads aloud from the paper about the two small worlds the astronomers say they will be watching next spring, and nobody believes a word of it, and everybody reads it twice. I have stopped minding the talk. It keeps the evenings full.

The dark out past the allotments is a proper dark now that the blackout is long gone, thick brown hedges and the river going silver under the bridge. Last Thursday I walked out to the old quarry with the lamp and sat on the edge while the stars came through, one at a time, the way a photograph comes up in the developing tray. I thought of you on that ship, the swells lit blue beneath you, and of a small figure standing on some far shore saying the very same things we say here.

Come home at Christmas if the rota allows. I will leave the back door on the latch and the kettle warm, and we can look at the sky together like a pair of proper fools.

Your loving sister, Ada