Colour tattoo of a snare drum with drumsticks on the forearm, overlaid on a rainbow wash and red colour blocks with stippled shading.

Snare drum with rainbow streaks on a forearm

Dotwork · Forearm · Mixed · Photo

A snare drum with two drumsticks rests across its top, drawn in black linework with hatched detail on the shell. A rainbow of blue, green, yellow, orange and red streaks rises diagonally behind the drum, with red blocks cutting across the drum body. Dotted shading softens the drum's lower edge, and the composition sits across the outside of a forearm.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom,

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The hall smelled of wet wool and polish when we got there, and Mr Akers made us wait an hour in the corridor while the cornet section argued about a semiquaver. I sat on an upturned crate with my snare between my knees and tapped the rudiments on the rim so my hands wouldn't go stiff. Paradiddles, flam accents, the long roll that always makes my left wrist ache. Mam says drumming is just hitting things in order, but she's never had to hit them in order in front of Edna Pollard, who judges the drums and has never once smiled at me.

When we came out, the sun had found the tall window at the side of the hall and thrown its light across the boards in stripes: blue first, then green, then a yellow that looked almost like butter, then orange, and a red that ran straight across the floor where the chairs had been. I lost my count. Dad would have swallowed his pipe. I stood there with the sticks in my hands while the band waited, and then I played the opening of the test piece off that rainbow, bar by bar, letting each stripe of light be a different stroke on the head.

We didn't win. We came third, and Edna Pollard said my tone was 'honest, if a bit loud on the rimshots'. I've decided that's a compliment. I'm sending you the programme and the red ribbon from the trophy table, because you said you wanted proof I'd stopped messing about with the spoons.

Write back soon, and tell Jan the kettle drum she lent me is still in the back of the van. I'll bring it home at Easter.

Your brother, Danny

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