Black and grey dotwork tattoo of an arched cat silhouette filled with stars and moon phases, placed on the inner upper arm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Night sky cat silhouette on upper arm

Dotwork · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A cat with its back arched and tail raised is shown in solid black ink, with small star shapes and circular moon motifs inside the body. The lower half of the silhouette fades out into fine stippled dots, creating a gradient of shading. The design is centred on the arm against a plain light background, with a dark sleeve at the right edge.

Dotwork Upper arm Cat Moon Star Night sky Silhouette Planet

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell, Tallow has taken to sitting on the rail above the galley stove every night now, back up like a fist, tail hooked in the air as if she is daring the moon to come down and fight her. Cook says a black cat aboard a northbound boat is bad luck, but Cook has never once been fed by her, so I do not listen to him.

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Last Tuesday the swell got up past Rockall and the whole crew was sick in the scuppers. I was the only one who could stand at the galley table without holding on. I was chopping onions for the stew and the stove door rattled and the lamp swung, and Tallow went up the bulkhead like she had been fired from a gun. She sat on the spice rack with her back bowed and her eyes on the porthole, where the sky had gone the colour of wet slate and then, for one minute, cleared to show a scatter of stars and a moon with a bite out of it.

I have started to think she is keeping count. Every night she settles on the same spot, and I swear the stars on her flank line up with the ones through the glass. Nobody else seems to notice. The mate laughs when I say so and calls me soft. Maybe I am. But when the stew was done and the men came down wet and cursing, she was the only one sitting still, watching the porthole as if she had been asked to mind the lights.

I will be home by the spring, if the Dunmore company keeps its word, and I will bring you a tin of the good tea and a shell for the mantel. Tell Mam not to fuss about the cat. Tallow has been fed better than any of us, and she knows it. Your loving brother, Davie.