Black and white flash drawing of a skull submerged in dark liquid inside a corked glass bottle, in a blackwork style.

Skull in a glass bottle

Blackwork · Black and grey · Flash

A line drawing of a skull sits inside a tall glass bottle with a cork stopper, partly submerged in solid black liquid. The outlines are clean and uniform, with the skull rendered in white linework against the dark fill and a few stippled dots added around the bottle. The design is centred on a plain white background in pure black and white.

Blackwork Skull Bottle

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom,

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The rain has come back to Hollin Wood, and with it the smell of wet bark that you always said made the cottage smell like a church. Mrs Pargeter came up the lane this morning with her basket and asked after you. I told her you were well and busy with the railway, which is more than I know. Forgive me for not writing sooner.

Father's bottle is still on the top shelf above the stove. You will remember it, tall and square-shouldered, with the cork he never once let anyone else push in. The sloe gin had gone black as ink by the time he died, and nobody could say what he had put in it besides the sloes. Then last month, when I reached up to pull the cork for the Christmas drink, I found the skull. Not a real one, Tom. A pale little thing that must have been carved from bone or wax, sitting in the dark like something drowned. I nearly dropped the bottle on the flags.

I took it down to the stream at the edge of the wood, meaning to pour the whole lot away, and stood there until my hands were cold. Then I thought of him at the table, turning the bottle to the window and saying the dark was only keeping things for later. So I carried it back and set it on the shelf. I have not decided whether that was sentiment or plain stupidity.

Come home for the spring if the line allows it. Bring the lamp with the green glass. We will open the bottle together and see what the old man was keeping.

Your loving sister, Ada