Colour tattoo of a red ribbon bow with black tribal swirls on the thigh, shaded in a neo-traditional style.

Red bow and tribal swirl on a thigh

Neo-trad · Thigh · Colour · Photo

A red ribbon bow with dark red and black shading sits on the thigh, outlined in black. Black tribal-style swirls curl away from the bow on both sides. Red ink dominates, with soft shading across the loops and tails, and the photo is taken at a slight angle against a plain interior.

Neo-trad Thigh Bow Ribbon Tribal Swirl

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The parcel has sat on the bench in the waiting room since the 7.14 pulled out, and nobody has claimed it, which is why you are the one holding the scissors at a quarter past four. It is wrapped in brown paper gone soft at the corners and tied with a red ribbon, looped into a bow so proper it looks measured. Inside the paper is a shoebox, and inside the shoebox a tin of boiled sweets and a folded timetable from years ago.

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Mr Okafor from the ticket office leans over your shoulder and says it is the sort of thing people leave when they mean to come back. He has logged a birdcage, a cello, a wedding cake and once a man's dentures in a glass. You tell him the bow is the odd part. Whoever tied it pulled each loop tight with a thumb, and the tails are cut on a slant, the way a dressmaker cuts thread.

The timetable has a pencil ring round the 9.02 to Carlisle. Under the tin is a card in the same careful hand: keep the ribbon, and tell the platform it was never meant as a gift. You turn the card over. Nothing on the back. You do the sensible thing, write a claim number on a tag and loop the ribbon through the handle, and you find the knot slides back into its proper shape without you thinking about it at all.

The 9.02 comes in on time. You stand on platform two with the box under your arm, watching the lamps come up along the track, half expecting someone to step down with a face that knows what the card means. Nobody does. By the time the doors shut you have decided the parcel is yours to keep, and you are already practising the knot.