Black and grey tattoo of a snarling bat with spread wings across the front of a neck.

Snarling bat on the neck

Neck · Black and grey · Photo

A bat with its mouth wide open, showing teeth, is tattooed across the front of the neck with its wings spread out over the collarbone area. The fur and face are rendered with fine hatching and stippled shading, while the wing membranes use bold outlines and soft grey shading. The image is black and grey, with the tattoo filling most of the frame against a dark background.

Neck Bat Wing Fangs

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Tuesday, 03:20. The bat is still in Ward 7. Porter Dev Ahluwalia says it came in through the sluice door behind a delivery of linen, and nobody has managed to shift it since. Sister Okafor wants it gone before the morning round. I told her all British bats are protected, which earned me a look that could strip paint.

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It hangs from the curtain rail above bed nine, wings folded like an umbrella someone forgot to close. When the corridor lights flicker it opens them, and the membranes go translucent, lit from behind like old church glass. Mr Pyle in bed nine swears it has been talking to him. I told him bats don't talk, Mr Pyle, and he said that's what the last one told him too.

Around four I finally got a tea towel over it and a cardboard box underneath, and carried it down the back stairs to the car park. It bit through the towel, hissed like a cat with a grievance, and showed teeth so small and sharp they made me think of the dentist's drill. Then it spread its wings over the wet tarmac, all those thin bony fingers, and dropped into the dark between the bins and the ambulance bay.

I came back up with cold hands and filled in the incident form. Under 'Action taken' I wrote 'Released to the night.' Sister Okafor signed it without reading. Mr Pyle asked if it had gone home. I said yes. It was the first lie I've told on this shift that felt like it might be true.