Large back tattoo in a Japanese style showing a grey skull in a red swirl-patterned robe beside black linework blossom branches, on a person lying face down.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Skull in red robe with blossom branch on back

Japanese · Back · Mixed · Photo

A large back piece shows a grey skull with black eyes wearing a robe with red swirling patterns, set against black linework branches of blossom with small red dots. Outline flowers are scattered across the upper back and the design covers much of the torso. Black linework is combined with red fills and the skin is shown on a treatment table.

Japanese Botanical Back Skull Robe Kimono Cherry blossom Branch Flower Swirl

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Hana, the lamps are out along the canal now except the one by the dye sheds, and I am writing this by it so my hand does not shake too much. You will laugh, but the red has come back into the water. Three nights running, the rinse at the Oyama vat has run the colour of madder, though nobody has tipped anything in.

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Your uncle swears it is the lady in the vermilion robe who walks the old plum lane below the bridge. Nobody has seen her face, only the bone of it, grey as ash, with two black hollows where the eyes should be, and a sleeve trailing red cloud-swirls over the water. Mrs Teshigawara says she is looking for the cloth she was buried in, which was never finished and never set.

I went down last night with the lantern. Blossom petals were stuck to the stones in a line, as if someone had been drawing a branch along the path with their fingers, and each petal had a dot of red at its heart. At the end of the line I found the vat-keeper's ledger lying open, and beside the last entry someone had written in a neat hand: Paid in full. Bring the robe home.

I have hung the spare linen on the line to dry, and I will dye it tomorrow with the old madder, the way she taught me. If you come home at the thaw, bring your strong hands for the wringing. I think she only wants the cloth finished, and I think the lane would be quieter for it. Your loving mother, Ume.