Drawing of a skeleton hand making the rock horns gesture, outlined in black with purple, green and yellow watercolour-style washes over the bones.

Skeleton hand in rock horns gesture

Colour · Flash

The image shows an outlined drawing of a skeletal hand with the index and little fingers raised and the middle and ring fingers folded down. The bones are drawn with bold black contours and fine hatching, and the surface is filled with soft purple, blue-green and yellow washes speckled with small orange dots. The subject sits centred on a plain pale grey background.

Skeleton Hand Bone

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tomasz,

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The wind came up through Hollin Gap the morning after you left, and I stood at the cairn with the mule's rope wrapped twice around my wrist, thinking of you on the far ridge with the ewes. You never answered the bell. So I did what Dad taught us when we were small and the fog came down: two fingers up, the rest folded tight, held high above the rocks where the light could catch it. I held it for ten minutes. My arm went dead. A crow landed on the boulder beside me and watched like I'd lost my wits.

Then a flash came back from your side, a mirror bouncing sun off the slate, once, twice, three times. Dad's signal for the pass is clear. I laughed so hard the mule shifted and nearly pulled me off my feet.

But I'll tell you what I saw while I stood there, because you'll think I'm daft. The sun was low and caught my hand against the grey sky, and for a moment it looked like the bones showed through, every knuckle and joint picked out in pale lines like the drawings in Dad's old anatomy book. Two fingers reaching up, two folded down, all of it stripped to what holds it together. I thought, that's what Dad was saying all along. Strip the rest away and the signal is still just a hand.

Bring the good tea when you come down. The mule has opinions about the lower path, and I have decided to let it win.

Your sister, Mara