Black and grey blackwork octopus tattoo with curling tentacles wrapping around the upper arm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Octopus tattoo wrapping upper arm

Blackwork · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A large octopus with a solid black body and white-dotted suckers spreads across the upper arm, its tentacles curling down toward the elbow and up over the shoulder. Bold black ink contrasts with fine white outlines and stippled highlights on the suckers. The design follows the curve of the arm against a plain light background.

Blackwork Upper arm Octopus Tentacle Sea creature

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell, the octopus got out again last night, and this time it went over the rim of the bucket and down the companionway as if it had an appointment. Cook swears it was counting the rungs. I found it in the galley cupboard among the tins of peaches, one arm curled round a jar of marmalade as though it was weighing up breakfast.

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Skipper wants it sold at Newlyn with the rest of the catch, but I told him it has more sense than the whole crew. Its skin goes dark as ink when it's frightened and pale as washed shell when it's content, and the little white rings on its suckers catch the lamp like buttons on a good coat. Last Tuesday it spent an hour working itself through the gap under the hatch cover, a fraction of an inch at a time. I have never shown anyone that much patience, not even you.

So this morning I hauled the net before anyone was up and tipped the creature back over the rail into the grey water off the Scilly side. It didn't hurry. One arm lifted from the wood first, then the rest unpeeled like a glove coming off, and it turned once in the swell, looking, I'd swear, straight at the boat.

Skipper will shout when he finds the empty bucket. Let him. Write back and tell me whether the lighthouse keeper's boy got his kite down from the chapel roof, and keep a lamp in the window on Thursday. I'll be the one smelling of brine and pretending I had nothing to do with it. Yours, Tom.