Black and grey tattoo of a spider on a web with a large flower on the upper arm, shown with a white sleeve pushed up.

Spider and web with a flower on upper arm

Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A spider sits on a spider web that covers the upper arm, with a large flower and a faint wing-like shape above it. The spider and flower are shaded in soft grey with defined outlines, and the web lines are rendered as pale, raised strands against darker shading. The image is in black and grey only, with the tattoo filling the frame.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom,

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The lamp room has a new tenant and I have decided not to evict her. She came in on the wind the week the fog settled, and by Thursday she had strung a web from the brass rail to the third bar of the lens frame, a perfect wheel of silk with the sea showing through the middle. Mr Pell says she will foul the clockwork. I say she has done nothing but catch the moths that fling themselves at the glass, which is more than the gulls manage.

Last Sunday I climbed the cliff path for sea thrift and found a tall white bell flower wedged in the rocks below the wall, its petals bruised at the edges but still holding. I carried it up in my coat pocket like a stolen egg. The lamp room smelled of paraffin and salt, and when I set the flower in a jam jar on the sill, the late sun came through the lens and threw the web across the whole gallery wall in shadow, every strand standing out pale against the dark. For a minute it looked as though the spider had spun her net over the flower and the sky both.

Mr Pell came up the stairs with his lantern and his complaints ready, and stopped in the doorway. He didn't say a word about the web. He simply watched the spider walk down the rail, unhurried, and step onto the petals of the flower as if they had been put there for her.

I've told him she can stay until the equinox. After that, the storms will come and the glass will need cleaning, and then we shall see who blinks first. Come up at Easter if the boat runs. Bring tea, and don't mention the jar.

Your sister, June

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