Solid black sea turtle tattoo with a trail of dots running along the top of a foot, in a blackwork style.

Sea turtle and dot trail on a foot

Blackwork · Other · Black and grey · Photo

A solid black sea turtle sits on the top of a light-skinned foot, with its shell and flippers filled in and a single line of dots running above and below it. The linework is bold and graphic, with no shading or greys visible in the ink. The foot is shown from above on a blue paper sheet in a seated position, with jeans, boots and a painted sign in the background.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom,

Keep reading

The turtle came up the shingle at Porthmellin on Tuesday, before the gulls were properly awake. Mrs Pascoe found her first and fetched Dad, and by the time the lifeboat men got down the slipway half the village was standing in its coats saying nothing much. She was black and enormous, heavier than the mooring chain, and she had dragged herself past the tideline on her flippers, leaving a furrow in the sand as if a cart had been through.

Dad knelt by her head and talked to her in the low voice he uses for the calves. He reckoned she'd been out past the Scillies, maybe further, following the warm water up from wherever it is they go. Nobody could say what she wanted with a Cornish beach in October. The vet from Penzance said she was old, her shell was cracked along one edge, and there was nothing to be done except keep her wet and wait for the tide.

We kept her wet all afternoon with buckets from the harbour. When the water finally reached her she lifted herself off the sand in one slow push and went under without looking back. Behind her, where the furrow ran down to the wrack line, there were small round holes pressed into the sand every stride or so, neat as stitches. I paced them out after the tide had taken the rest. Forty-one of them. I kept thinking of you out there past the same water, counting the same stars.

Write back and tell me you're keeping your feet dry.

Love, Jenny

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