Small purple butterfly tattoo on the inner wrist, with soft shading across the wings and a silver bracelet beside it.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Purple butterfly on a wrist

Other · Colour · Photo

A small butterfly with outstretched wings is tattooed on the inside of a wrist. The wings are filled with purple and magenta tones, with darker outlines and soft shading, and the body is drawn in fine dark lines. The photo is taken against a pale blue sky, with a red knitted sleeve and an engraved silver bracelet visible.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Marion,

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The butterfly came in through the kitchen window on Tuesday, when the wind off the car park was pushing the net curtains into the sink. I thought it was a scrap of purple carrier bag until it landed on the tap. Magenta at the edges, darker where the veins run, and it sat there opening and closing its wings as if it was reading the label on the washing-up liquid.

Four floors down the lads were kicking a ball against the bins, and through the wall I could hear Mrs Okafor's radio playing the shipping forecast, which she says is the only thing that keeps her calm. I stood very still. You'd have laughed at me, holding my breath over a bit of colour. Then I remembered what you said at the station, that the one thing you'd miss was the sky over Hollins Road, big and washed out, and I thought, well, here's a piece of it come to visit.

I got the lid off the jam jar and coaxed it onto the rim, and then I did what I should have done in March. I opened the balcony door. It sat on the railing for a long minute, wings flat against the pale blue, and then it lifted over the edge of the block as if it had somewhere to be.

I'm not writing to tell you it means anything. Ring me on Sunday and tell me what the weather's doing over there. Tell me if the sky is the same. Love, Pat

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