Colour tattoo of an owl wearing round glasses above crossed bones, in neo-traditional style, on the inner lower arm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Owl wearing glasses on a lower arm

Neo-trad · Forearm · Colour · Photo

A large owl perched with wide, round eyes behind thick-framed glasses, with its wings folded along the body. The bold black outlines and detailed feather texture sit within blue, orange, green and tan shading. Crossed bones with a wrapped binding sit at the base, and the design is centred on the limb against plain skin.

Neo-trad Forearm Owl Glasses Feather Bone Bird

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Ada,

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The owl came back to the cabin roof last night, the same one that sat on the tiller in March with its round eyes fixed on the lock keeper as if it had read his ledger and found it wanting. Dad says it's just a tawny that's taken a liking to the coal smoke. I say a bird that sits that still and looks that clever has earned a name, so I've called it Mr Fenwick, after the schoolmaster who once made me copy out the whole of Gray's Elegy for stealing apples.

We're tied up at Hythe Basin now, waiting on a cargo of bricks the yard keeps promising for Thursday. Dad has been mending the rudder pin with a length of old chain and a hammer he calls the Bishop, and every time it rings across the water Mr Fenwick shuffles along the gunwale and clicks his beak. Mum says he's judging the workmanship. Dad says he's judging her cooking, which is fair, because the stew was grey on Sunday.

Last Tuesday, though, something odd happened. The lock keeper's boy came down the towpath with a bundle wrapped in oilcloth, bones and binding wire, and asked if we knew whose they were. They had come out of the old eel trap under the bridge. Dad went quiet, took them off him without a word, and that night he buried them in the mud by the bow where the river takes what it's given. Mr Fenwick watched the whole thing with his head on one side.

I'm writing this on the back of your last letter because the paper's run out, so forgive the scrawl. Come up for the Whit fair if you can. Bring your good pen, and I'll let you read Mr Fenwick's opinions on the bricks.

Yours, Bess