Traditional tattoo of a grey skull with a green and orange snake coiled around crossbones, placed on a calf.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Skull and snake on a calf

Traditional · Calf · Mixed · Photo

A grey shaded skull with a red mark on its forehead is crossed by two bones, with a teal and orange banded snake wrapped around them and its head at the lower right. The skull uses soft grey shading while the snake and red accents use bold outlines and solid colour. The design is centred on the calf and is shown against a red wall and a pale, out-of-focus background.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tomasz,

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The big top came down in Carlisle on Tuesday, and we have been sleeping in the horse box since, which is a sorry thing to write to a man who once told me the circus was the only honest house in England. Mr Dunmore sold the lions to a zoo in Kent. The elephant, Gladys, went for the price of a secondhand van. What's left is the wagon with the skull painted on its tailboard, the one Dad had done in Leeds years ago, and Serpent, who has outlived every other act in the company and still will not be handled by anyone but me.

Yesterday the last crowd we had was eleven people, two of them asleep. I did the snake for them anyway, the same slow loop round the bones I've done since I was nine, Serpent's green and orange bands catching the light off the red tent wall. When her head came down by my boot an old man stood up and clapped as though he'd been told to. Afterwards he bought a programme for a penny and asked whether the skull was real. I told him it was the only thing in the show that had never lied.

Dunmore says we'll winter at the coast and see. I think he is saying it to himself. Come and see us if you can. The ground's still soft by the river and there's a room over the chandler's if you don't mind the gulls. Bring your good boots. I've kept the sawdust in a biscuit tin, and I'd like you to take a pinch of it home for Mum.

Love, Nell

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