Small black airplane silhouette tattoo on a forearm, photographed in black and white beside an aircraft window.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Small airplane silhouette on a forearm

Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A small, solid black airplane silhouette sits on the inner forearm, seen from the side with its wings and tail clearly defined. The shape is filled with flat black ink rather than fine linework, and the photograph is in black and white. The arm rests against an aircraft window and a seat panel with safety pictograms, with a knitted sleeve at the lower edge of the frame.

Forearm Airplane Silhouette Travel

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell, the planes come over the cut every forty minutes now, low enough that the kettle chatters on its hook and the ducks give up on the bread. I stopped counting them in March. Dad would have counted them for me, flat on the roof with his pipe, naming the airlines by the colour of their tails and pretending he could read the lettering. Mrs Pryce at the lock says the approach path has pushed the house prices down for years, which suits me fine, since the barge was never going to fetch anything anyway.

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Your drawing came in the post on Tuesday, folded twice inside a chandler's receipt. It's a plane with no windows and no wing lines, just a solid black shape, as if someone had cut it out of the night and left the hole behind. You wrote on the back that it was only a silhouette, that you didn't need the rivets or the little row of passengers because the outline was enough to tell anyone where it was headed. I laughed at that, and then I didn't. You were always the one who left first and sent back the map.

I've pinned it above the stove, between the tide table and the photograph of us on the Kennet, both of us squinting into the sun. Last night one came down so low the cabin lights swept right across the water, and I stood on the towpath with the dishcloth still in my hand and watched it turn for the runway. It was only a black shape against the orange sky. I knew it wasn't yours, and I waved anyway.

Come back when the cut freezes. Bring the good tea. I'll put the kettle on, and we'll see which of us can name the airline first.