Colour tattoo of a pair of red ruby slippers with black outlines on the lower back, with a silver quarter resting on the skin beside it.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Ruby slippers tattoo on lower back

Back · Colour · Photo

A pair of red, sparkly-looking slippers with black outlines sits on the lower back, angled towards the lower left of the frame. The shoes are shaded with lighter highlights and darker red areas, giving them some volume. A silver quarter rests on the skin above them, and a pale patterned fabric fills the lower edge of the photo.

Back Shoe Coin

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Tuesday, Ealing Lock. The cut is brown as stewed tea and the ducks have given up on us. Auntie Ada came aboard this morning with a shoebox under her arm and wouldn't say what was in it until we'd tied up properly. Two red shoes, the kind with a little strap across the instep and heels worn down on the outside. The sequins have gone dull at the toes. She said they were her mother's, bought for a dance in Kilburn in 1961, and she'd been meaning to sell them for ten years.

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I asked why she was bringing them to us, a pair of bargees with a leaking stove. She said we were the only ones she knew who'd keep things moving. Then she set a silver quarter on the table, worn smooth at the edges, from a bag she'd carried since Chicago, and said that was for the fare. I told her the fare was the mooring fee and she laughed so hard she had to sit on the coal box.

Tonight, after Tom had gone to bed, I tried them on in the galley with the lamp turned low. They pinched, and the heels wobbled on the linoleum. Out of habit I clicked them together three times, and I felt foolish straight away. Then the boat shifted against the lock wall, the gate groaned open, and the towpath lamps came on one after another all the way to Brentford, as if someone had been waiting for a signal.

I've put the quarter in the jam jar with the spare keys. The shoes are back in their box, and I've written Ada's address on the lid so I remember to post them. I think she was right about one thing. They're still moving.