Colour traditional-style tattoo of an owl face with yellow daisies and green leaves on the inner forearm.

Owl and daisies on a forearm

Traditional · Forearm · Colour · Photo

A colour tattoo of a stylised owl face with red, orange and brown feathers, yellow eyes and a yellow beak, set above a cluster of yellow daisies with green leaves. The bold black outlines and flat, saturated fills suggest a traditional approach. The design sits on the inner forearm near the wrist, with a mustard-coloured sleeve at the top of the frame.

Traditional Forearm Owl Daisy Flower Leaves Feather

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The last train to Settle has gone by the time you reach platform four, and the owl is where it always is, on the iron bracket above the ticket office, its rust-red feathers lit orange by the lamp. Nobody on the station has ever seen it move. Mr Pell, who has swept this concourse for thirty-one years, says the paint went on during the summer the roof was re-glazed, and that he gave up arguing with it long ago.

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You have a letter in your coat pocket addressed to Marian Hale, care of the Ferry Inn, Morecambe, and no stamp. Mr Pell watches you hesitate beside the bucket of daisies Nell sells from the kiosk. "She'll only be a day late," he says, not unkindly. "Owls don't mind the timetable. They mind who turns up." Nell wraps two daisies in newspaper and presses them into your hand without taking your money.

You climb onto the bench under the bracket and reach up with the envelope. The owl's yellow eyes catch the platform light, and the signal bell rings twice, though the line has been closed since nine. You tuck the letter behind the ironwork, where the bracket meets the wall, between a nest of dry leaves and a faded ticket stub.

In the morning the post van stops at the end of the platform. The letter has gone, and in its place sits one daisy, pressed flat and bright as a lamp, with a rust-coloured feather laid across it like a bookmark.