Realistic black raven in flight with wings and tail breaking up into ink splatter, with fine red lines behind it, drawn as a tattoo design on a pale grey background.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Raven in flight dissolving into ink splatter

Realism · Mixed · Flash

A black raven is shown mid-flight, angled downwards with its wings spread and its talons extended. The bird is rendered in detailed, realistic shading, and its wing and tail feathers dissolve into loose clusters of black ink spots and splatter. Thin red lines run diagonally across the pale grey background behind the bird.

Realism Raven Crow Bird Wing Feather Ink splatter Flight

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell, the skylight over the composing room finally gave way on Tuesday, and by Wednesday there was a raven living in the bindery. Mr Haskett wants it shot. I told him a bird that clever had earned its keep, because it has been walking across the forme every night and leaving wing marks on the galleys. When the lads flapped at it with a rag it took off from the stone and scattered a whole page of the Mercury into a sky of black spots, and nobody could say which letters had gone where.

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The red guide lines Haskett ruled for the trim marks have started to look strange to me. He draws them in a rusty ink that bleeds at the edges, and on the proofs they run off the sheet at an angle, as if they were chasing the bird out through the door. Every morning there is a fresh drift of soot on the cabinet beside the type cases, and the men swear it was not there when they left.

This morning I found the bird perched on the lead cabinet, watching my hands while I set a line of small caps. It did not steal anything. It only looked at the composing stick, then at me, and gave one hoarse croak that sounded almost like the word proof. So I pulled one last sheet off the press before the ink dried. Where it had stepped across the wet black, there were three neat toe prints, and a long feather of ink trailing off towards the window.

I have kept that sheet folded in my apron pocket. Come and see it before Haskett sells the press in the spring. Bring your reading glasses, because the letters on it are running off the page, and I cannot tell any more whether they are spelling something or only flying away. Your loving sister, Ada.