Enlarged with AI from a smaller original
Owl on a branch tattoo design
Black and grey · Flash
A detailed drawing of an owl with large round eyes, perched on a twisted branch that curls across the lower part of the image. The feathers are built up with fine hatched linework and soft grey shading, with dark spots scattered across the chest. Soft smoky clouds of grey tone surround the bird, and the whole image has a teal tint.
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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction
Dear Nell,
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Your mother would have written this better, so you'll have to put up with my spelling. The owl has been on the hawthorn by the lych gate every night this week, the one with the bare branch that curls out over the wall as if it wants to reach the lane. On Tuesday I went out with the torch to see whether it was the same bird that sat on the church roof the winter you were born, and it stared at me the way Mr Pryce stares at anyone who coughs during the psalms. Round eyes, not a blink in it. I told it to mind its own business. It did not.
Tom came round in April with his cap in both hands and asked me straight out whether I minded him taking my girl. I said I'd mind more if he took you and never asked what you thought about it. He went red to the ears, and the owl lifted off the branch without a sound, which is how you know a good one hunts. I took that as a yes.
This morning I found a single feather in the grass under the hawthorn, grey and fluffed at the edge, dotted like someone had flicked ink at it from a brush. I've tucked it inside the cover of your mother's hymnbook. Carry it up the aisle if you like, or leave it on the pew. Either way, you'll know something has kept watch.
Don't let him have your side of the bed the first week, he'll try it.
Love, Dad
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