Collage of nine small black tattoos on hands, wrists, neck and back, including birds in flight, an infinity symbol, a barcode and script lettering.

Nine small tattoos: birds, script and symbols

Fine line · Hand · Black and grey · Photo

This collage shows nine close photographs of small tattoos on hands, wrists, the neck and the upper back. The designs include a flock of birds, a single bird in flight, an infinity symbol, a barcode, a feather and words in script lettering. The linework is thin and the tattoos are in black ink with no shading or colour, set against plain skin and neutral backgrounds.

Fine line Lettering Hand Forearm Back Neck Bird Swallow Infinity symbol Feather Script Word Believe Let it be Hair

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Mind the step, it's still warm from the flour sacks, and sit where you can see the window. Right, the birds. Every morning before the shutters went up on Carrow Lane, a flock came off the chapel roof opposite and went over the bakery like a sheet of newsprint shaken out. Sixty years I baked under them and never once counted them twice.

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The winter Alice Brand came to us from Hull, she had a laugh like a dropped tray and a notebook full of words she wouldn't let anyone read. She stood at the back door with her coat buttoned wrong and told old Mr Penhale she was off to London in the spring. He didn't argue. He handed her a peel and said the bread would not wait for anybody's plans.

Spring came, and on her last morning she stood in the yard with her case at her feet, watching the chapel roof. The birds lifted all at once and wheeled over the chimney, and I swear the loaves in the racks rose a finger's width in the warmth of their going. 'Go on, then,' I said. 'The oven's hot and I can manage the rest.' She looked at me as if I'd handed her a key.

She sent a postcard at Christmas with one word on it, in pencil, the way she always wrote. Free. I pinned it above the proving cupboard, where the warm air keeps it curled, and every dawn when the flock comes off the chapel I tell the apprentices the same thing. Watch the birds, not the clock. The bread knows when it's ready.