Black and grey dotwork fox curled up asleep beneath a crescent moon, with teal accents, on the upper arm.

Sleeping fox and crescent moon on an upper arm

Dotwork · Upper arm · Mixed · Photo

A fox curled up asleep, with its tail wrapped around its body, sits inside a black base shape on the upper arm. Fine stippled dotwork and etched linework shade the fox, and a crescent moon, scattered dots and small crosses fill the background. Teal blocks of colour are placed around the design against the pale skin.

Dotwork Neo-trad Upper arm Fox Crescent moon Star Dot Night sky

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The barrier at Harrow Lode had been stuck up since midnight, and you were the only one awake to notice the fox. It had come up the access road without hurry, stepped over the cable trench and settled on the warm concrete beside the hut as if it had paid for the spot. By two the rain had stopped. You made a tea you didn't want and watched it watch you.

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Your sergeant, Dunmore, had a rule about animals at the post: you logged them like vehicles. So you took the clipboard and wrote fox, one, eastbound, no papers, then sat staring at the empty column where a passport number should go. The fox had curled its tail round its nose and gone to sleep. Above the lorry park the moon was a thin paring, hung up like something left out to dry.

At four a Polish haulier, Tomasz, came to the window with a torch and a question about his seal. You showed him the sleeping animal instead. He laughed and said his grandmother kept a story about foxes on borders: a fox asleep on a crossing meant nobody got through without first being dreamed of. You didn't believe him. You stamped his papers anyway, slowly, and let him count the stars for himself.

When the sky went grey over the fields the fox was gone, leaving only a shallow dent in the concrete and a few dark marks like dropped seeds. You wrote in the log: none. Then, under it, in smaller letters, you wrote the date and one fox, sleeping, let through.