Back view of a woman with raised arms, showing a large colourful back tattoo of an ornate octopus-like central design and a blue and purple arm sleeve.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Ornate octopus back piece and colour sleeve

Back · Colour · Photo

A woman sits with her back to the camera and her arms raised, her hair in a loose bun. A large central design on her upper back shows an ornate, octopus-like figure with swirling tentacles, surrounded by stars and fine decorative linework. Her arms carry further colourful tattoos, including a blue and purple sleeve with floral and swirl motifs, set against a plain beige background.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Morag, you will not believe what came up in Tam's creel on Tuesday, so I am writing it down before the story grows bigger in the Harbour Inn. It was an octopus the size of a hatbox, and when Tam tipped it onto the slipway it turned from brown to a bruised violet, then spread itself out like a fan. Every inch of its underside was ringed with little circles, one inside another, the way you draw a mandala in the back of an exercise book when the lesson is dull.

Keep reading

Dougie wanted to take it to the fish market in Kirkwall for the price. Nobody argued with him, but nobody helped either. Mrs Rendall stood with her arms folded and said the creature had been counting the stars through the water all night and had got tired of it. I laughed at her, then looked up, and the sky over the pier was thick with them, more than I have seen since we were girls. The octopus turned its head towards them as if it wanted to be sure they were still there.

So Tam let it go off the end of the pier. It slid down the green stone steps as though it had been waiting for permission. I watched the swirls on its back dim to a pale smudge, and then not even that.

Come home at Easter. The lamp on the point is working again and I want you to see the water for yourself. Love, Ingrid

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