Black and grey stippled drawing of a raven perched before iron bars, with a rose and curling vine above, designed as a tattoo flash.

Raven and rose in a stippled oval

Dotwork · Black and grey · Flash

A raven stands in profile on a stone ledge in front of vertical iron bars, with a dark rose and curling vine sitting above the oval frame. The image is built entirely from fine dots, giving soft shading on the bird's feathers, the wall and the wooden post below. The palette is black and grey only, and the oval composition isolates the bird and rose against a plain white background.

Dotwork Botanical Raven Crow Rose Vine Bar

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The raven has lived in the cloakroom of the Hollis Ballroom since before the war, and Mr Oddie insists every guest pay her a respect before they check their coats. You tip a sixpence through the iron bars and she takes it in her beak, turns her head sideways as if weighing you, then drops it into a tin that rings like a small bell. Tonight the band is already into a slow foxtrot, and the floor hums through the soles of your shoes like a heartbeat.

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Eddie Varley promised he would be waiting by the pillar at ten, the way he promised last spring and the spring before. Every Saturday someone leaves a single dark rose on the stone ledge outside the cage, its stem bound in wire and its petals black as wet slate. Mr Oddie swears he never sees who brings it. You have started to suspect the bird knows, because she watches the door whenever the music changes.

At half past ten she shuffles to the edge of her perch and speaks in Eddie's voice, low and tuneless, asking whether you intend to stand there all night. You step back. The brass latch on the cage has never been fastened. You have checked it every week, and so has everyone else. She has no reason to stay except the rose, and perhaps the rose is the reason.

You lift the flower from the ledge, thorns and wire and all, and pin it to your lapel. Behind you the band swings into the last waltz, and Mr Oddie calls out that your coat is ready. You do not turn round. The raven taps the tin once with her beak, a thin bright note, and you walk out into the rain without your coat.