Enlarged with AI from a smaller original
Spotted mermaid flash design
Traditional · Mixed · Flash
A mermaid sits with her arms raised to her head, wearing a crown of white flowers and red tassels over long, flowing hair. Her tail is shaded in black and grey with yellow and orange spots and bands, and pearls trail along her body. The figure is drawn with bold outlines and soft grey shading on a cream paper background with a dark surround.
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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction
Dear Tom,
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The tent smells of wet sawdust and the lamp oil you hate, and the big top has three patches where the canvas has gone thin as tissue. Mr Varley says the council will not renew our pitch on the common after September, so we are packing up slowly, the way you'd fold a flag, one corner at a time.
The mermaid is the last thing anybody still pays to see. We call her Pearl, though her real name is written in the back of the ledger. She sits on the velvet rock in the crown of paper lilies Mother made, the red tassels bobbing whenever she laughs, which is rarely now. Her tail is the one you painted for her, black as a rook's wing, with the gold spots running down it like the leopard from the Hippodrome that nobody remembers. Nobody remembers anything older than the television.
Last Tuesday a boy of about eight stood at the rail for an hour without blinking. When Mr Varley called the closing time he asked, "She's not a fish, is she?" and Pearl, who never speaks in front of the public, said, "Not today." He ran off delighted. I wrote it down because I thought you'd want to know the show still has a line in it.
Come home if you can. Bring the good brushes. We could paint the tent one last time before the men with the lorry come on Friday.
Your loving sister, Ada
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