Black and grey realism tattoo of a rabbit-eared skull with the words FEAR and LOVE below, on the inner forearm.

Rabbit skull with FEAR and LOVE on a forearm

Realism · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A black and grey tattoo of a skull with long, upright rabbit-like ears sits on the forearm, with the teeth and eye sockets rendered in detail. Soft shading and fine stippled texture give the bone a three-dimensional look against the light skin. Below the skull, the words FEAR and LOVE are written in a thin hand-lettered script, separated by a horizontal line, and a person's hand and dark clothing are partly visible at the edge of the frame.

Realism Forearm Skull Rabbit Lettering Fear Love

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Mrs Ashdown had kept the rabbit's skull on the windowsill of the lodge for thirty years, and nobody in Hollin Cross had ever asked why. It was a long, thin thing, the ears still hinged to the cranium, and she dusted it on Thursdays with a feather duster kept for nothing else.

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Her grandson Tomas came up the track in March with a van full of cider barrels and a face that would not settle. He wanted the skull. He had heard what the village said about it, that it sat on the sill until someone was brave enough to say their fear out loud, and then it took the fear and gave back whatever they loved most. Tomas thought that sounded like a nursery tale. He did not think it sounded like a fair trade.

She made him tea first, and the kettle took its time. Then she told him the rabbit had come over the high pass in her mother's coat lining, sewn in by a man who could not pay the toll, and that every bargain struck over it had one rule: you pay in the thing that frightens you, and you keep the other half. Tomas asked which half he would keep. She laughed, and in the lamplight the skull seemed to grin with her.

He left it on the sill. Driving down, he kept both hands tight on the wheel, and somewhere past the cattle grid he understood what he had been afraid of all along. He did not need the rabbit to tell him, and he had no intention of asking it for anything.