Black marker sketch on white paper of open books rising and changing into a flock of birds, a tattoo design drawing.

Open books turning into flying birds

Black and grey · Flash

A hand-drawn black marker sketch on white paper shows a vertical column of open books. The books at the bottom become lighter, sketchy outlines and gradually turn into small bird silhouettes flying upward at the top. The bold, loose linework is shaded with solid black areas on the book pages, and the composition is centred with plenty of empty paper around it.

Book Bird Flock Flight Open book Sketch

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom, the thaw came on Tuesday and took the top off the lane, so the van is stuck at the gate and I've been carrying hay bales by hand like Dad always swore he'd never let us do. Don't laugh. I'm writing this at the kitchen table with my gloves still on because the range has gone out twice this week.

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I've been drying Mum's books. You remember the water that came through the back bedroom roof in October. Forty-odd volumes, swollen like bread. I hung them open along the rail above the range, spines up, pages fanned, and every morning I turn them a little more. Most of them are fine. The atlas is ruined. The Brontës have gone wavy, which Mum would have said served them right for being so miserable.

Yesterday at dusk the rooks came down over the top field in a great ragged sheet, and I stood in the yard with the feed bucket and watched them lift off the stubble. They turned all at once, dark and then pale, and for a second they looked exactly like pages riffling when the back door blows open. I thought of the one with Mum's pencil notes crammed in the margins, the one I couldn't bring myself to read. Tonight I did. I won't tell you what it says. You'll have to find it yourself.

I'll post it to you with the rest of the box. Don't argue. Open the window on the landing when it arrives, and if the wind's from the west, you'll know what I mean.

Love, Nell