Black ink tattoo of a penny-farthing bicycle with spoked wheel and tiny rear wheel, on the calf.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Penny-farthing bicycle on a leg

Calf · Black and grey · Photo

A black ink tattoo of a penny-farthing bicycle, showing a large front wheel with thin radiating spokes, a hub, a fork, a saddle and a small rear wheel. The outlines are solid and the spokes are fine, with no shading or added colour. The bicycle is centred on the skin and the photograph is taken straight on against a light background.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The bicycle comes off the coach roof in two pieces, the great front wheel first, and by the time you reach the barrier at Corran Ferry the old man has it upright and balanced on its tiny back wheel like a question. You ask him to step aside so you can look at it. He says it has crossed three borders already and never once been asked to declare its spokes.

Keep reading

Your supervisor wants it through the scanner. You wheel it yourself, and the thin spokes catch the strip light as you go. You count them out of habit and lose your place twice while the machine hums. Inside there is nothing but iron and rubber gone hard with age. The saddle sits higher than your head, and the fork leans a fraction to the left, as if it once met a kerb it still resents.

He tells you that a penny-farthing goes wherever its front wheel points, and that the little wheel behind is only there to remind you that you were once someone who needed reminding. You don't know what to say to that, so you stamp his papers and hand them back. He takes the handlebars, swings his leg over with more ease than a man his age should have, and sets off up the road towards the hills.

You watch until the big wheel is a dark ring against the snow line. Behind it, the small wheel leaves a narrow track in the dust, looping and straightening, looping and straightening, until the road bends and there is nothing left to follow.

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