Red goldfish tattoo with soft shading and flowing fins on the upper thigh.

Red goldfish on a thigh

Fine line · Thigh · Colour · Photo

A single goldfish swims upward, shown in profile with fine scale texture on its body and long, trailing fins. The tattoo uses soft red shading and delicate outlines, with lighter tones giving the fish a rounded, dimensional look. It sits on the upper thigh against plain, pale skin, with the subject placed centrally in the frame.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tomas, The bowl came up the valley road on Thursday, wrapped in two coats and strapped to the back of Old Ilse's mule, and I have not been able to stop looking at the fish. It is the red of a pillar box in the rain, and it does not swim so much as lift itself, nose first, against the water, its tail spilling out behind like a bride's veil caught on a gate. Father says it is a poor sort of fish to keep in a town where the only water is snowmelt. I told him it has been swimming uphill since it was bought and has not complained yet.

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The pass is closed again. The carter says the snow came down on the Vellin side in a single night and buried the cairns, so the letters will have to wait for thaw. I have put yours in the tin with the candle ends, the one you said was too heavy to carry. Read the second page twice before you answer. I have marked the place where you wrote about the lake below the col, where you said the water was so clear you could count the stones, and I thought of the fish at once.

Ilse says the goldfish came from a merchant who crossed the high road with a dozen of them and sold all but one. She said he kept that last one because it refused to go down into the dark of the cart, and every time they stopped it turned toward the mountain. I know that is the sort of story travellers tell to make a price higher. Still, I have set the bowl on the sill facing the pass, and each morning it is a little closer to the glass.

Write soon, if the road allows. Tell me the lake is still there.

Ana

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