Colour realism portrait of a bald man with the lettering I'D RATHER BE A BLIND MOTH, tattooed on the lower leg.

Realism portrait with quote on calf

Realism · Other · Colour · Photo

A tattooed portrait of a bald man in a collared shirt and dark jacket fills the centre of the lower leg, with the words I'D RATHER BE above his head and A BLIND MOTH below. The face is shaded with smooth tonal blending and fine detail in the eyes, stubble and skin. Skin-toned and muted colours sit alongside green and orange foliage on the right edge, and the lettering is solid black with a clean outline.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Ask the moths of Corrowen what they think of the harbour lamps and they will tell you the lamps are the only honest thing in the kingdom. Pale wings, round and round, until the wax runs dry. Old Harl Tennick, who kept the lamp at the Gull Steps, had no quarrel with that. What he could not abide was the way the young watch-captain stood beneath the beacon each night, squinting up at it and counting the moths that burned.

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"Put your hand over your eyes, Captain," Harl said one evening, passing him a tin cup of cider. "Then you'll see as they do."

The captain laughed, but he did it. Harl watched him stand there with his palm flat against his brow and the light pouring gold across the water, and he saw the man's shoulders loosen the way a rope does when the weight is finally taken off it. "I'd rather be a blind moth," the captain said at last, "than a man who has to watch the thing he loves go out."

The next night the lamp had gone dark for want of oil, and the harbour was black as a closed book. Harl climbed the steps with a fresh can, expecting to find the captain cursing the dark. Instead he found him sitting on the top step with his eyes shut, and a dozen moths resting on his coat and sleeves, wings folded, drinking nothing at all.

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