Black and grey dotwork tattoo of a full skeleton with a skull and laurel wreath, on the inner forearm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Skeleton and laurel wreath on a forearm

Dotwork · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A standing skeleton with its skull framed by a laurel wreath with small flower buds at the top. The figure is built from fine stippled dots and short hatching, with the ribcage, spine and pelvis shaded to give depth. The image is black and white, showing the tattoo across the forearm with a grey garment at the left edge.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell,

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Sorry the last letter was so short. Nights on the anatomy wing have been strange since they moved the old teaching collection down to the basement corridor. Mr Hollis is still standing where he always stood, by the lift, with his arms held out as if he is about to be measured. Somebody has hung a laurel wreath on the wall behind him, cut from the plastic plants in the chapel, and Sister Okafor swears she didn't do it.

Last Tuesday I found my trolley pushed against his ribs at three in the morning, the strip light flickering over his pelvis so the bones seemed to breathe. I sat on the bottom step and ate my sandwich with him. I told him about you, about how you wouldn't touch peas until you were seven, and how I'd promised myself I would never miss another school play. He doesn't say much, Mr Hollis. He has the manners of a man who has heard everything twice.

The wreath was left over from the Christmas revue, the one where the junior doctors dressed him as a Roman senator. Nobody claimed it afterwards. I took it down that night and found the little flower buds had been wired on with fishing line, neat as stitches. It seemed a shame to bin it.

So I hung it back up. Someone should keep the old fella dressed for the occasion. Write when you can, and tell your mother the car is fine.

Love, Dad

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