Realism-style tattoo of a moth with blue-shaded wings across the back of a hand, with red nail polish on the fingertips.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Realistic moth on the back of a hand

Realism · Hand · Mixed · Photo

A large moth sits across the back of the hand, its body rendered in grey and black with detailed segments and its wings spreading over the knuckles and up towards the wrist. The shading is smooth and highly detailed, with soft blue tones on the wings contrasting with the dark grey body. Dark, fading ink drips run down from the moth toward the fingers, and the subject is centred against a dark leather-look background.

Realism Hand Moth Insect Wing

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tomas,

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The pass has been closed since the snow came early, so I am writing this by the stove in the refuge, where the only company is the post-van driver and a crate of tinned peaches. You asked in your last letter whether the moths still come up this high. They do. Last night one walked across the page while I wrote, grey as wet slate, its wings blued where the lamp caught them, and it settled on my knuckle as if it had been sent to check on me.

Mr Aske at the lower hut says the old hands call them dead-heads, after the pale mark on the back, but I think that is unkind. This one had a body like a wrapped parcel, every segment ridged, and when it finally lifted it left a smear of soot on my skin that would not wash off for two days. I kept thinking of the streaks down the glass of the stove door, how the ash runs when the damper is shut too early.

Come up in June when the road is open. Bring the good tea and the brass compass your father left you, and we will walk to the cairn at the top and see whether the moths have gone higher still.

Yours, Ilse