Colour realism tattoo of a red and orange dahlia with green leaves on the calf.

Realistic dahlia with leaves on a calf

Realism · Calf · Colour · Photo

A large dahlia bloom with layered red, orange and yellow petals fills the centre of the image, with a yellow-orange centre. Green leaves sit behind and below the flower, and soft grey shading gives the petals and leaves depth. The tattoo is photographed straight on against a pale background, showing the full design on the lower leg.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Odile, the frost came early to Lower Terrace this year, and the pump on the north dome gave up on the ninth day of the thaw. I have spent three nights with a torch between my teeth, taking the glass apart by hand. The dahlias survived. Every one of them is in the long bed by the water tank now, wrapped in sacking like sleeping children.

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You will remember the old seed ledger, the one with the water stain shaped like Ireland. Page forty-one lists a variety called Bishop's Ember, brought up from the archive vaults in the first decade after the Quiet. Nobody believed it would bloom again. The petals open in layers, red at the tips and turning to saffron toward the heart, and when the light comes in low through the south panes the whole bed looks like it is burning without any harm done.

Yesterday Teodor cut the largest bloom and carried it to the hall. He set it in a jar of rainwater on the council table and nobody spoke for a full minute. Even Mrs Adeyemi, who has argued against every planting since the Reclamation, went quiet and touched one petal with her thumb. I think she was counting the layers the way you and I used to count the rings on the old oak.

I am sending you a tuber in the tin with the broken clasp, packed in dry sand. Keep it in the cold room and do not let anyone tell you it is only a flower. Plant it when the frost lifts, and write to me the day the first leaf unfolds. Your loving sister, Hanne.

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