Small solid black hummingbird silhouette tattoo on an ankle, with the wearer in plaid canvas boat shoes on a sandy background.

Small hummingbird tattoo on an ankle

Ankle · Black and grey · Photo

A small solid black silhouette of a hummingbird in flight sits on the outer side of an ankle, with its long beak pointing left and wings raised. The shapes are filled with flat black ink and have no shading or fine detail. The background is a warm, sepia-toned photograph of a plaid boat shoe and sand, which keeps attention on the small tattoo.

Ankle Hummingbird Bird Silhouette

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The bird came in on the 6.14 from Penzance, tucked inside a crate of lilies that nobody claimed at the parcels hatch. I found it on the bench under the clock, a sliver of black no bigger than my thumb, its long beak aimed at the ticket window as if it had a complaint to lodge. Mrs Oakeshott from the florist's swore she had packed nothing but lilies, then swore she had never seen a hummingbird in her life.

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I had a shoebox, a tea towel and no idea what they ate. Dad once kept a feeder by the back step at Lydford, a red glass bottle of sugar water, and I remembered him saying they could hang in the air as if pinned there on invisible string. So I stirred syrup into a jam jar at the kiosk and offered it on a teaspoon. For two days the bird flitted between the ventilator and the lost property shelf, feeding in short bursts and never staying still.

On the third morning the wind backed to the north and the Exeter train stood at the signal with its doors open. The bird rose through the gap in the roof like something poured upwards, circled the lamp twice, then dropped onto the carriage step as if to check I was watching. I was. It ran the length of the platform at window height, wings a blur, then swung left over the footbridge and was gone towards the marsh.

The guard blew his whistle. Mrs Oakeshott came out with a cup of tea she said was for me and a box of lilies she said were wrong. I drank it standing on the platform, looking at the jam jar on the bench, still half full, and thought how small a thing can be and still know exactly where it is going.