Black and grey realism tattoo of a skull breaking through torn skin on the upper arm and shoulder.

Skull emerging through torn skin on upper arm

Realism · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A large skull is shown breaking out through ripped, flayed skin, with deep black shadows in the eye sockets and nasal cavity. The skull is shaded in soft greys with bright highlights across its crown, and the torn edges have a three-dimensional, raised look. The tattoo covers the upper arm and curves over the shoulder, with the composition filling most of the frame.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Thursday, the thaw. The lawn behind the orangery has split along the old drain line, and the turf peels back in long grey flaps, as though something has been trying to get out from under it. I went out with the fork expecting worms and found the skull instead, its crown lifted clear of the clay, the low sun catching the top of it so it shone like a wet stone.

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Mrs Haverly came down in her dressing gown and wouldn't go closer than the terrace steps. She says the house was built over a plague pit, and her grandfather said the same, and I told her the ground here has been dug for drains and nothing older than my boots. The eye holes are black as the gap under a door. I've set a bucket over it for now, which is a poor sort of burial, but the rain has been coming sideways since Sunday.

Thorne from the council rang at noon. He wanted it bagged and sent to the coroner. I said I'd wait for the police to come and look, and they have not come. Instead the bucket has moved, a hand's width toward the back wall, and the mud around its rim has been scraped in four neat lines, as though someone had been holding on from underneath.

I've laid the spade across the gap and left the kettle on in the potting shed. Tomorrow I'll dig it out properly, gloves on and the barrow ready. Mrs Haverly has promised a flask. I expect the thing will be sitting up by then, grinning at the rhododendrons, and I expect I'll be the one holding the spade.

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