Colour tattoo of a large outlined number 12 above a dripping blue Seattle skyline with the Space Needle, on the upper arm near the shoulder.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Seattle skyline and number 12 on upper arm

Upper arm · Colour · Photo

The tattoo shows a large green number 12 with a blue outline, sitting above a solid blue Seattle skyline that includes the Space Needle. Green and blue drips run down from the skyline's base, giving a painted, dripping effect. The bold colour fills and clean outlines sit on the upper arm, with the shoulder curve visible at the top of the frame.

Upper arm Shoulder Number Skyline Drip City

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nan,

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The glaze has split again, so I am writing this on the back bench while the first tray of loaves goes in. Through the loading dock window the sky is still ink over the water, and I can just make out the Needle's red light blinking at the top of the hill, as if it is counting the bakers in. Mr Okafor from the ferry office wants a hundred and forty iced rings for Saturday, every one in green and blue, every one dripping down the sides the way he sketched on a napkin last week.

I told him the drips were the hard part. You thin the colouring with a splash of milk, pipe it along the top edge, and let gravity do the rest, but only as far as the board, or the whole tray sticks to the paper. He laughed and said the napkin was the easy bit, he has been drawing those towers on the back of bus tickets since he was nine. Then he tapped the sketch where a big bold twelve sits over the skyline, blue outline and all, and said that was the part he could never get right by hand.

So I tried. The first batch looked like a bruise, the second like a swimming pool. With the third I stopped fussing and let the green run into the blue the way the rain runs down the glass on Mercer Street, and somewhere around the fortieth ring I stopped thinking about the icing at all and just watched it slide, slow and stubborn, towards the edge.

I have kept one back for you. It is in the blue tin beside the till, drips facing the wall so they don't smudge. Come before the trams start and we will eat it with the window open, and you can tell me whether the sky looks the way I have been painting it. Love, Rosie.