Black and grey brushstroke tattoo of a small perched bird with a long tail, placed on the lower leg above a black sock.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Small bird on the lower leg

Ankle · Black and grey · Photo

A small songbird with a long, upright tail is shown in side profile, standing on thin dark legs. The bird is built from loose, sketchy black and grey strokes with soft shading on the wing and body, giving a painterly, unfinished feel. It sits on pale skin against a blurred studio background with a grey floor.

Ankle Bird Songbird Tail feather Wing Leg

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The wren had got into the paint shed again by the time I came back from the bakers, and Dad was swearing at it the way he swore at the damp, fondly and without much hope. Its feet had walked straight through the black he had mixed for Hollis's fascia, and there were little three-toed prints running across the gold leaf of the word GROCER like someone had tried to read it and given up. The bird was perched on the edge of the trestle with its tail cocked straight up, as if it owned the whole street and meant to say so.

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"Wrens hold their tails up so the world knows they're still there," Dad said, not taking his eyes off it. "Which is more than Hollis manages." Mr Hollis wanted the board finished by Saturday, and a sign with footprints on it was no sign at all. Dad reached for the scraper, and I got there first, cupping my hands over the bird the way Mrs Penhale had shown me with the hens. It didn't struggle. It just looked at me sideways, one bright eye and a beak like a bent pin, and I carried it out to the hedge under my hands.

When I came back, Dad had dipped his smallest brush in grey and was painting the bird himself, in the bottom corner of the board where the paint was still wet. No outline, just quick rough strokes for the wing and a long dark stroke for the tail, and two thin legs he drew without lifting the brush. Hollis came in on the Friday, looked at it for a long time, and said it wasn't what he had ordered. Dad said it was the only honest thing on the board, and Hollis, to my surprise, didn't argue.

The sign is still over the door of what's left of the shop. The gold has gone to brown, and the bird has faded to a ghost, but the tail still points up at the lintel as if it's waiting for someone to come and read the rest.