Realism tattoo of a woman's face on the forearm, with a tear of blood running from the eye, bloodied lips and small black butterflies near the nose.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Realistic face with bloodied eye on forearm

Realism · Forearm · Mixed · Photo

A large realistic tattoo covers the forearm and shows a woman's face, with a detailed grey eye and nose and red-stained lips. Blood-red streaks run from the eye and across the mouth, and a cluster of black butterflies sits beside the nose. The shading is soft and smooth in greys, with the red blood providing the only strong colour against the skin.

Realism Forearm Face Eye Tear Blood Lip Nose Butterfly Woman

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The mule-driver Abel Tenne was the first to see the woman at the Salt Wells crossing, sitting on the fence rail with her face turned to the road as if she had been waiting for someone in particular. Her left eye was grey as creek stone and never blinked. From the corner of it ran a thin red tear that did not stop at her jaw but went down over her mouth and dried on her chin, and the flies that gathered there were black and wide-winged, though it was too early in the year for butterflies.

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He offered her water from his skin. She drank, and the red kept running, and she told him what she had come to tell someone. Her husband had sold the well at Corrin Hollow to the railway men, and the well had been hers first. She had not wept for the husband. She had wept for the water, which had been sweet, and which the railway had spoiled with lime so that it would be cheaper to haul. Abel did not know what to say to that, so he said the railway men were thieves, which was true and no comfort to anyone.

She took his hand and pressed the wet of her cheek into his palm. By morning the palm was stained the colour of cut plums and would not wash, and a cluster of black butterflies had settled on the rail where she had sat. A month later the railway men came through and found the water wagon tipped into the dry wash, its driver gone, and only a cloth stiff with dark red lying by the track.

Abel carries the stain to this day, and every spring he walks out to Corrin Hollow and sits on the rim of the old well, which is dry, and waits with his hand open on his knee for someone to come and ask him for a drink.