Black and grey sketch-style tattoo of a cartoon girl with large eyes and a hair bun, placed on the upper back.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Sketchy cartoon girl on upper back

Back · Black and grey · Photo

A cartoon girl with large oval eyes, a small mouth and a hair bun is drawn in loose, sketchy black linework, split down the middle by a vertical line. Shading uses dense hatching in the hair and across the shoulders, with lighter areas left as skin. The design fills the centre of the upper back, with the image taken straight on.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom, the sketch you asked about is still pinned above my desk, though calling it finished would be a lie. You remember the girl I used to doodle in the margins of the rent book, the one with the bun like a bobbin and eyes too big for her face? I drew her again last month, on the back of a coach ticket, somewhere above Cragg Hollow where the road gives up and the snow takes over.

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The coach stalled for three hours. I had nothing to do but press the pencil into the card until the lines bit through. Halfway down, my wrist jerked and I ran a stroke straight through her, from the crown of the bun to the point of her chin, the way you'd fold a sheet to check it was symmetrical. The left half came out soft and grey. The right half I went over in ink, hard and certain, shading her hair in short strokes until the card went dark. I thought I'd spoilt her. Then the driver called us back on, and I put the ticket in my coat and forgot it.

Three weeks later, unpacking, I found the ticket again. Someone had been at it. Dense hatching now ran down the left shoulder where I'd left only a suggestion, and a second, fainter line had appeared beside the fold, as if she had been turned a little to look at something behind me. My hand has no memory of doing it. The coach company says nobody else sat at my table.

So I've stopped trying to decide which half is the true one. Mum says I'm being fanciful, and perhaps I am. But I've started drawing the other side of her, and I don't think I'm the only one holding the pencil. Write soon, and tell me whether you can still see the bun from where you're standing. Love, Ros.

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