Black ink blackwork and dotwork tattoo of a curled-up cat in front of rooftops, a sun and waves, inside a circle on the upper arm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Sleeping cat and town in a circle on upper arm

Blackwork · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A cat lies curled inside a circular frame, with a row of pitched-roof buildings rising behind it, a sun with rays in the upper left and a dotted patch of sky. Waves are drawn along the bottom of the circle. The linework is bold and even, with stippled dotwork used for shading and texture, and the image is shown in black ink only against pale skin.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The harbour council wanted the cat moved before the regatta, and Mr Anand from the planning office had been sent to do it. He arrived with a clipboard, a tape measure and a sandwich he had no intention of sharing. Tibbs, who had slept on the sea wall since the spring gale, did not stir when the clipboard was set down beside him.

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Mr Anand began with the roofs. He counted the slates on the chandlery, the twin gables of the old customs house, and the crooked row of cottages that the tide had been leaning against for a century. Every time he looked up from his figures the sun seemed to have moved a little further across the water, and the pitched roofs seemed to have shuffled closer together, as though they were settling in for a long afternoon.

By four o'clock his feet ached and his tape measure lay forgotten in the weeds. Mrs Quill came down with a flask of tea and found him sitting on the wall beside the cat, one hand resting on its warm, curled back, watching the small waves fold in against the stones.

The report he filed the next morning ran to one line: the harbour is already in good order, and nothing in it needs to be moved. Tibbs, when asked, did not comment.

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