Black ink tattoo of an open zipper running down a bare back along the spine, with the slider near the upper shoulder blades.

Open zipper tattoo down the spine

Back · Black and grey · Photo

A bare back viewed from behind shows a black tattoo of an open zipper. The teeth are drawn as short solid black marks, with the metal slider sitting at the top of the closed section, and the two halves of the zipper spread outwards towards the shoulders. The ink is black only, set against pale skin with a plain, uncluttered background.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The dress came into Mrs Tully's shop on the Thursday before the harvest dance, and by the Friday it had been unpicked and sewn three times, because the zip would not lie flat. Every seam was true. The lining was silk cut from a parachute that had come down on the moor during the war and been bought off the farmer for a shilling. Still the zip ran from the nape to the small of the back and stopped, a closed mouth that would neither open nor close.

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Her granddaughter Ada sat on the cutting table with her feet swinging and watched her grandmother work the slider with a bent pin. 'It wants a name,' Mrs Tully said. 'Things that stick always want a name first.' She licked her thumb and smoothed the teeth. 'Your mother's sister was called Pearl, and Pearl's zip stuck the night the miller's boy asked her to dance. She stood in the yard and said she would not go, and the zip opened on its own.' Ada asked what had made it open. 'She did,' said Mrs Tully. 'She decided which way it went.'

On the Saturday the hall smelt of paraffin and hot sugar, and the fiddles were tuning up by the stage. Ada stood in the doorway in the dress with the zip still shut at the back, and for a while she only watched the floor fill with boots and borrowed shoes. The miller's boy came over, and she shook her head before he asked. Then she reached behind her, found the cold tab with her fingertips, and pushed it up towards the shoulders. The two halves parted like a pair of curtains, slowly, teeth clicking free one after another, and the back of the dress fell open to the air.

Nobody remarked on it. The fiddler struck up a reel and Ada went out onto the boards, her shoulders bare to the light, her dress open at the back and steady as the moor. Mrs Tully, by the urn, put down her cup and smiled at the wall.

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