Neo-traditional tattoo of grey scissors with pink blossoms and a teal ribbon on the inner forearm, with a teal wash behind.

Scissors and cherry blossom on a forearm

Neo-trad · Forearm · Mixed · Photo

A pair of grey, shaded scissors sits at the centre of the design, with dark scrolled swirls curving behind the blades. Two pink cherry blossom flowers with yellow centres and a teal ribbon wrap around the scissors, and a soft teal wash fills the background. The bold black outlines and smooth shading give the piece a neo-traditional feel, and the design is centred on the forearm.

Neo-trad Botanical Forearm Scissors Cherry blossom Flower Ribbon Swirl

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Rain had been coming off the canvas awning of Stall 41 since seven, and Maureen Pardoe had given up pretending the ribbon bolts were dry. She sorted offcuts into biscuit tins while the market hummed on under the lamps: a man selling phone cases, a woman frying onions for a queue that never seemed to shorten.

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Her late husband's shears lay on the cutting board, the grey pair with scrolled bows that he had bought from a Sheffield dealer in 1974. The blades had been sharpened so many times they had gone slender as herons' legs. Every spring he had cut cherry blossom from pink silk for the Easter display, and every spring a length of teal ribbon had been wound round the handles, because he said a pair of scissors without a ribbon was only a threat.

A girl, perhaps sixteen, came in under the awning with a carrier bag of wet satin. Her prom dress had torn at the seam. Maureen did not ask who had torn it. She threaded a needle, then looked at the girl and took up the shears instead, snipping away the frayed hem in one clean stroke, the sound like a breath drawn through teeth.

When the rain stopped at nine, the girl left with the hem folded in her pocket and a teal ribbon knotted at her wrist. Maureen wiped the blades on her apron and laid them back in their velvet case. Then she noticed the reel was short by one length, and she smiled, because somebody would have to come back for the rest.