Colour tattoo of a pink origami crane with a black and orange lotus on the inner forearm, with traditional-style tattoos visible above it.

Pink origami crane and lotus on a forearm

Japanese · Forearm · Colour · Photo

A pink origami-style crane with patterned blossom printing sits above a dark lotus flower with orange-tipped petals on a forearm. The linework is bold and solid, with smooth colour fills and shading that gives the petals depth. Other tattoos in red, green and yellow, including a rose and a striped object, appear at the top of the frame against a plain white background.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Oskar,

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The pond behind the mill froze on Tuesday, so I have been folding cranes at the kitchen table to keep my hands busy. Mrs Abbott from the shop asked for twelve for her grandson's christening and I told her I would have them by Friday, which means I am now on the eleventh and it is only Wednesday. You always said I would never finish a thing I started, and you were right about the hedge, but the cranes are different.

The paper is the pink sheets you sent from Osaka, the ones with blossom printed on the back. I have been careful not to waste any. Each bird takes a fold more than the last one I made, or so it feels, and the wings come out sharp only if you press with your thumbnail rather than the flat of your hand. Father taught us that the winter the forest flooded, when there was nothing to do but sit by the stove and fold whatever paper the post had brought.

The lotus is what I have been thinking about most. You remember the dark one that grew in the reeds below the lock, the one nobody could reach without wet boots? I went down on Sunday with a knife to cut a stem for the vase and found the water gone still and black, with ice at the edges and nothing flowering at all. I stood there longer than I should have. Then I came home and folded a crane, because that is what I know to do with cold hands.

Come home at Easter. I will have the cranes done, and I will show you where the lotus used to be.

Love, Ines

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