Black line tattoo of a police box with roses, poppies and leaves across a person's upper back, seen from behind.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Police box and roses across a back

Botanical · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A large outline tattoo covers the upper back, showing a police box with a panelled door and the words POLICE BOX above it. Roses, poppies and leaves surround the box in a symmetrical, framed arrangement. The work is made of single black linework with no shading, and the composition fills the shoulder blade area.

Botanical Back Police box Door Rose Poppy Leaves Flower Outline

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell, you will think I have finally lost my wits, but the box came back to the hedge behind Mill Lane on Tuesday, the same week the poppies went over in the churchyard. Mr Pryce from the forge walked up to it with his hammer, meaning to knock the paint off, and came back saying there was a cloakroom inside with coats on hooks, a kettle still warm, and a corridor that went on much further than the wall ought to allow. Nobody in the village believes him, which is why I am writing to you instead of telling the vicar's wife.

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The door is the same as ever, four panels to a side with the little square windows at the top, and the words above it have worn thin enough that you have to squint at POLICE BOX before you believe it. Roses have grown up both sides of it since Tuesday, and the leaves have crept over the roof like someone pulled a shawl up to its chin. The briars that tore my sleeve on Wednesday are the same ones now holding the gate shut. I cut back the lowest ones with the shears from the shed, and by evening they had put out new buds on the cut ends, which I shall not mention to Mr Pryce again.

I left a tin of shortbread on the step with a note tucked under the lid, asking whoever keeps the place to mend the latch on the back gate before the children get their hands caught in it. This morning the tin was empty and the note had gone. In its place was a single poppy pressed flat against the door, petals still red, as if it had been slipped in between the pages of a book and forgotten.

The door is standing a little open now, just enough to see a slice of warm yellow light falling across the floor. I have not gone in. I have left the gate unlatched for you, so come home at Christmas and bring the kettle back if you have it.