Two fine line black tattoos on a forearm: an open birdcage with a hanging key on the left, and a flock of birds rising from swirling lines on the right.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Open birdcage and flying birds on forearms

Fine line · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

The left tattoo shows an open birdcage with a small key hanging from its base, drawn in delicate single lines. The right tattoo shows a flock of birds lifting away from a curling swirl of thin linework. Both are rendered in black ink with no shading, set against pale skin on a dark background.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Win,

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The key turned easier than either of us ever managed, which is the first thing I want you to know. Mr Halloran kept the cage on the shelf above the till for eleven years, a canary called Duchess singing at the bread knives, and when the shop shut for Whitsun I took the key from the hook behind the counter and stood on the step-stool with my heart going like a bad escapement. The little door swung open without a squeak. Duchess looked at it for a long time, as if it were a trick, then went out over the bakery roof in one clean line.

I am writing this on the back of the invoice pad because the good paper is in the drawer under the scales, and because I haven't got the nerve to tell Mother. She'll say I've gone soft since you left. Perhaps I have. I keep thinking of the way you packed that suitcase with your coat folded on the outside, as if you wanted to be seen going.

Mr Halloran hasn't noticed yet. He sits in the back with his pipe and his ledgers and says nothing about the bird, only that the place is quieter. I think he knows. Yesterday he left the cage door hanging open himself and went out to the yard without a word.

Write to me at the Brighton address, not the post office. I'll walk the length of Market Street every Saturday to see whether any swallows are left under the church eaves, and if there are I'll whistle for them the way you taught me. You always said they came back to the same nest. I suppose birds do, if the nest is the only thing they know. Love, Edie

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