Traditional-style tattoo of a green and blue owl with pink feathers, with a banner reading NOT WHAT THEY SEEM, on the lower leg above the ankle.

Owl with banner on lower leg

Traditional · Ankle · Colour · Photo

A traditional-style owl with a green and blue body, pink feather tufts and orange eyes sits centrally in the design, with a brown scalloped wing shape behind its head. A peach banner above and another below carry the words NOT WHAT THEY SEEM in black lettering. Bold black outlines and flat colour fills dominate, set against pale skin on the lower leg with a foot visible at the bottom edge.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The owl came into lost property on a Tuesday, wedged under a bench on platform two, a painted thing the size of a loaf with a peach ribbon across its chest. The tag said 'ornament, green, one eye chipped', so I put it on the shelf behind the umbrellas, where it sat being decorative for three days.

Keep reading

On Friday, at ten to midnight, the ticket barrier chimed twice with nobody passing through it. I went out with my torch and found the owl perched on top of the gate, facing the empty concourse, orange eyes wide open. Its banners had changed. The lower one, which had been blank to me before, now said in plain black capitals: GOOD EVENING, MRS PRYCE. Mrs Pryce has been dead since the spring, and I had only ever seen her name on a delivery note.

I rang my supervisor, who said the cleaners had been at the Windolene again. I said the owl had just clipped my ticket, and it had, the little punch-hole still warm in the card I'd left on the counter. Dennis, who has worked nights on this line since the signals were levers, came out in his cardigan and simply nodded at the bird as if it had signed in for a shift.

The 00:12 to Carrowmoor was standing with its doors open and no driver. The owl hopped onto the seat nearest the door and started reading the timetable upside down. When the train pulled away, it looked back at me over one shoulder, and the lower banner had changed again. It now read: YOUR TURN ON THE GATE.

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