Black and grey dotwork tattoo of a songbird standing on a wireframe octahedron, placed on the inner forearm.

Songbird standing on an octahedron on a forearm

Dotwork · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A small songbird with a dark head and a speckled, dotted breast stands on a wireframe octahedron drawn with fine black lines and dashed hidden edges. The bird's wing and tail use bold solid black with scale-like marks, while the body is built from stippled dots. The design sits centrally on a pale forearm against a white and grey brick wall.

Dotwork Geometric Forearm Bird Songbird Geometric shape

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tomasz,

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The rain has not let up since Tuesday, and the Saturday market on Carrow Row is more puddle than pitch. I have the trestle table under a tarpaulin that sags like a wet sail, and on it I have set out what you left me: the box of brass dice, the tin of pins, and the octahedron you carved from pearwood the winter before you went north. Mrs Okafor from the bakery stall came over this morning to ask whether the bird on top was for sale. I told her it was not. She laughed and said nothing in this city was for sale any more, only rented by the week.

You'll remember the wren I found in the gutter by the fish van, the one with the bent wing. I kept it in a shoebox and fed it crumbs of cheese until it could stand. One night it hopped onto the pearwood shape and sang, and the note rang off the dice like a struck glass. Every time it sang, the shape turned a little on its point, as if the bird were the one doing the rolling.

Yesterday a man in a grey coat bought every die in the box and asked for the bird as well. He paid in coins still warm from his pocket. I wrapped the octahedron in newspaper, and at the last minute I did not hand it over. By dusk the shoebox was empty. The window was open a crack, and the rain had come in across the sill.

I found a feather on the cobbles by the chip van, dark at the tip, and I have pinned it to the tarpaulin so it doesn't blow away. Come home when the thaw comes, or send word. I will keep the pearwood shape on the table with its lid open, in case the bird comes back to sing on it.

Your sister, Ilse