Black ink squid with swirling tentacles covering the outer upper arm, drawn in fine line with hatched shading.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Squid and tentacles on an upper arm

Fine line · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A large squid with detailed suckers and long, flowing tentacles fills the outer upper arm, wrapping down towards the elbow. The linework is fine and sketch-like, with hatched shading on the body and dotted suckers along the tentacles. The design is in black ink only, set against a plain maroon sleeve and a grey carpeted floor.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Brother Anselm rang the bell for the third time that morning because the thing in the harbour would not let go of the rope. The rope ran from the landing stage up the cliff to the cistern-house, where the fishermen's catch was hauled and weighed the old way. Its end had gone under the grey water at dawn, and now the whole line hummed like a harp.

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The abbot came down in his bare feet with a lantern he did not need, for the sun was already on the water. He looked at the rope, then at the long pale arms lifting slowly out of the harbour, freckled with small dark cups that caught the light. They were patient arms. They had the look of something that had been thinking about the matter for a hundred years.

Anselm asked what they should do. The abbot said the sea had been fed by the monastery for as long as the monastery had stood, so they would feed it. They carried the salt fish up from the store and laid it on the stones. The squid came up, one great head lifting out of the swell like a bell-shaped moon, and it took each fish with a careful arm and folded it away into the dark.

When the store was empty, the head turned slowly to look at the abbot, and its eye was as wide as a cartwheel and as clear as the cistern water. Then it let the rope go, and the rope fell slack across the stones. The monks climbed back up the cliff to their prayers. Anselm said afterwards that the creature had been thanking them. The abbot said it had only been counting.

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