Colour tattoo of a phoenix with spread wings rising from flames across the upper arm and shoulder, in a traditional style with bold black outlines.

Phoenix rising from flames on upper arm

Traditional · Upper arm · Colour · Photo

A phoenix with outstretched wings rises from a bed of flames, with its head turned towards the upper left. The feathers and fire use bold black outlines, smooth colour fills in red, orange and yellow, and dark shading that blends the flames into the skin. The design wraps across the shoulder and upper arm and fills most of the frame.

Traditional Upper arm Shoulder Phoenix Bird Wing Feather Flame Fire

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The boiler house at Carrow General sits behind the staff car park like something the war forgot to knock down, and at ten past three every night Len Osgood was already down there, feeding the furnace with a shovel he called Mabel. I brought him his tea in a chipped mug that said World's Okayest Grandad, which he claimed was the only true thing ever printed on a mug.

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'Banked it at seven,' he said, nodding at the firebox. 'Raked it under the ash so it'd keep till I came back. Never let it go right out. Once it's gone you're starting from a match and a prayer.' He tapped the grate with his boot. 'You bank it. You don't kill it.'

At four, something came down the flue with a rush of soot and a thump on the iron. A swift, singed at the tips, hammering itself against the glass of the inspection hatch. Len lifted the hatch and the firelight caught its wings, and for a moment the bird was every colour that furnace had ever been: red at the wrist, gold along the flight feathers, a dark edge like char on paper. He wrapped it in an old towel, took it up the steps to the yard, and opened his hands.

It didn't fly straight. It flapped twice, dropped, then climbed over the bins and the sodium lamp and away towards the frosted car park. Len watched it go with his hands still curled.

Upstairs on Ward Seven, the radiators began to tick and knock as the heat came round. In bed nine, Mr Hollis woke, asked for toast, and looked at me as if I'd personally arranged the morning. Len said the trick was always keeping a little heat back for the morning.