Colour neo-traditional tattoo of a pink awareness ribbon and a black and orange butterfly with a golden halo, on the upper back below the shoulder.

Pink ribbon and butterfly with halo on a shoulder blade

Neo-trad · Back · Colour · Photo

A pink awareness ribbon sits at the centre, with a black and orange butterfly resting over its right side and a glowing golden halo above the butterfly. The linework is bold and dark, with shaded highlights and cast shadows that give the ribbon and butterfly a raised, three-dimensional look. Pink, teal, orange and yellow dominate against the skin, and the design fills most of the frame.

Neo-trad Back Awareness ribbon Butterfly Halo Ribbon

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dessa had been on the oncology corridor at St Aidan's since ten, and the night was going the way nights did, in small kindnesses and long stretches of quiet. She pushed the linen trolley past room eleven, where Mr Okafor's radio murmured a cricket commentary nobody had asked for, and stopped at the nurses' station. A pink ribbon pin lay on the counter beside a tin of shortbread. Mags, who ran the ward with a biro behind each ear, had left it there for whoever came on next.

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A moth had got in through the fire door propped open for the bins, and it was batting itself against the strip light at the end of the corridor. Dessa caught it in a plastic cup and carried it to the window. It was not a moth. Its wings were black with orange spots, and when it opened them under the sodium glow from the car park, a rim of gold seemed to hang above it, though that was only the lamp behind the glass.

She watched it for a while on the sill. Mags came up with two teas and said the butterflies came for the flowers left on the lobby table, the ones in cellophane sleeves, and got lost on their way out. Dessa said nothing. They drank their tea in the blue hum of the corridor, and the butterfly walked slowly along the cold pane, testing each step.

At six, when the day shift arrived with their bags and their wet coats, Dessa opened the window wide. The butterfly lifted off into the grey and caught the first light before it was gone. Mags tapped the pink pin across the counter with one finger. "Take it home," she said. "You've been minding that thing all night." Dessa pinned it to her tunic and went down the stairs into the morning.