Black and white photo of a small solid black penguin tattoo with a swirling body line on the inner forearm near the wrist.

Small penguin tattoo on the inner forearm

Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A small, solid black penguin sits on the inner forearm, shown in a stylised outline with a spiral line curling through its body and a white belly area. The linework is bold and smooth, with no shading, and the design is placed at the centre of a plain, pale patch of skin. The photograph is black and white, with a dark shelf on the left and a dark background on the right.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tomas, The hut has been quiet since the last supply ship left in March, so I have had time to watch the penguin. He turned up in the first week of June, a gentoo grown too big for his colony I think, and he has taken to the back step as if he pays the rent. The logbook says he is a visitor. Ailsa at the station calls him Mr Hollins, after the man who sold us the stove, because he has the same look of disapproval.

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Every morning he walks the same loop from the fuel store to the step, and the snow keeps a record of it. Where his feet go, the path curls back on itself, a long spiral running down to the shingle. I started pressing a marker stick into the drift each day to measure how far he went, and by the end of the month the trail looked like a fern unrolling. Nobody believed me when I said the bird had a sense of direction. Ailsa says it is only habit, which is what she says about the radio too.

Last Thursday the wind dropped to nothing and I saw the ship's light far out on the water, a small yellow pin in the dark. I ran to tell Ailsa, and when I came back the step was empty. The spiral in the snow had come undone and was walking straight toward the sea, neat as a compass needle. I followed it down to the edge of the ice, where he stood with his white front to the water, looking back at me as though I was the one who needed directing.

I have decided he is the sensible one. The ship is due again in spring if the sea allows it, so come and see him for yourself. Bring the good tea and a decent pair of boots. Your brother, Iain

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