Black and grey tattoo of a snail looking through a telescope on a tripod, drawn in fine hatched linework on the lower leg.

Snail and telescope on a leg

Calf · Black and grey · Photo

The tattoo shows a snail with a spiralled shell peering into a telescope mounted on a three-legged tripod, with a shadow beneath the scene. The linework is fine and dense, built from cross-hatching and stippled shading that gives an engraving-like look. The design is entirely black and grey and sits alone on the skin, with the leg filling the frame.

Calf Shell Shadow

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The telescope was lying on its side in the heather when I reached the top of the Hause, three brass-capped legs splayed like the fingers of a dead hand. I had been climbing for nine days and I was not inclined to refuse a gift, even one that had clearly been abandoned by somebody who had hoped for better weather. I pushed my way under the tube, lifted the tripod's feet with the slow patience that is my only real equipment, and wedged the stones beneath them until the whole arrangement stood level against the wind.

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A shepherd's boy came up the path in March, saw me on the eyepiece rung, and laughed so hard he had to sit down on the cairn. He told me the comet was due before Easter and that it would be gone within the week, so I had better be quick. I thanked him and did not explain that I had no idea how to be quick, and that the only sky I had ever properly watched was the one that crept across the stones over my head while I waited for the frost to lift. He left me a heel of bread, which I ate over three days.

The comet came on the last clear night of April. I saw a smudge of light, then a thin white tail, then the grey hush of the valley below it, and I watched until the cold got into my foot and the stars began to slide down behind the ridge. When the sun rose the tripod's shadow lay across the rock in a neat triangle, and beside it my own shadow, curled and patient, sat right where I had left it. The comet had long since gone. The sky had not noticed my being late, and I found I was grateful for that.