Black and grey flash design of a skull inside an outlined heart with a dotted border, shaded with stipple, shown without a body placement.

Skull within a dotted heart

Traditional · Black and grey · Flash

A stylised skull sits centred inside an outlined heart with a row of dots along its edge. The linework is bold and even, with solid black areas for the eye sockets and teeth, and the interior is shaded with a fine stipple that fades toward the lower point of the heart. The image is a plain black and grey design on a pale, speckled background.

Traditional Skull Heart Teeth Ribs Dot

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The snow took the chapel bell again last night, so I have been listening for the goats instead, and they have been no help at all. Father says the pass will stay shut until the thaw, which means this letter may reach you after you have already decided whether to come home or stay in Brig. I am writing it anyway, while the stove is hot and the lamp still has oil.

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I found your tin under the loose board by the window, the one with the heart pressed into its lid. You punched the dots in with a nail, one at a time, and swore it took you three evenings. Inside are the four bone buttons you cut from Uncle Anton's ox, and the card you wrote the winter we met, with a skull drawn inside a heart and the words only honest valentine underneath. I laughed at it then. I am not laughing now, but the tin sits on the sill, facing the road.

Yesterday the carter came up with salt and a rumour that a man in a coat like yours was seen at the lower hut, sitting with his back to the stove and his hat on his knee. I went down the path as far as the first switchback before the wind turned my lantern over. When I climbed back, frost had furred the lid of the tin, and the buttons were no longer inside. All four were lined up on the sill in a row, like the dots around the heart.

Come up the road before the snow closes it properly, and bring the buttons with you. Father says he can mend the gate, and I have the thread ready. Whatever the carter says about the lower hut, I want you at this table with the stove lit and your boots steaming by the fire, arguing with me about the stitches.