Fine line black outline tattoo of a shark swimming across the side of a thigh, with a blue top visible above it.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Shark outline on the thigh

Fine line · Thigh · Black and grey · Photo

A single-line outline of a shark swims horizontally across the side of the thigh, showing a dorsal fin, pectoral fin, tail and a few gill marks. The linework is thin, even and black, with no shading or fill, so the skin tone shows through the body of the shark. The subject sits in the centre of a close, side-on crop, with a blue top and a wooden door softly blurred in the background.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tomasz,

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The lift at Harrowgate House has been out since Tuesday, so I have been walking the stairs with the shopping like a woman climbing a lighthouse. Mrs Okafor on eleven says the council will fix it when the pigeons get a union. I told her I am not waiting for pigeons. I am coming up to see you every Sunday, and you can stop pretending you don't watch the car park for me.

I found your drawing in the bread bin, folded small. A shark, swimming straight off the page with no colour in him at all, just the line of him. You pencilled in the fins so carefully, and the little notch behind the gills, and the belly you left empty. I asked why and you said the paper was supposed to show through. I thought that was a clever answer from a boy who won't eat his greens.

Your grandad used to say the sea is the only thing on this estate that doesn't pretend to be something else. He worked the trawlers out of Hull until his chest gave out, and he would sit at this same window with his tea going cold, telling the blocks opposite about the grey water. I never once saw him draw anything. I think he would have liked your shark.

Come up on Sunday and bring the drawing. I want to see if you have finished his tail. And bring a biro, the one with the blue top, not the chewed one.

Love, Nan

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