Black ink outline drawing of a stacked totem pole with a stylised eagle with outstretched wings at the top and a grimacing face at the base, on a white background.

Stacked totem pole line drawing

Black and grey · Flash

A black line drawing of a stacked totem pole, with a bird-like head, a hooked beak and outstretched wings at the top. Below are stylised faces, a snout and a grimacing face with a wide, toothy mouth at the base. The bold, even outlines are left open and white, with no shading or colour.

Eagle Bird Wing Face Mask Teeth Beak

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The pole had been standing in the Hollis orchard since the spring a carver came through in a dented van with a chainsaw he called Mabel. Every evening he sat on an apple crate and explained that the eagle on top kept an eye on the valley, while the grimacing face at the bottom did the actual work. Grandad said that sounded like the parish council.

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In August the Bramleys were ripe and the wasps were drunk on windfalls. A storm came over the ridge while I was up the ladder picking the last of the Discoveries. The pole groaned, leaned, and started tipping towards the greenhouse. I shouted for my brother Tom, who came running with a tarpaulin and a bad opinion of the whole idea.

We couldn't lift it. The wings caught the wind like sails, and the wide, toothy mouth at the base seemed to grin at us as if it had seen this sort of thing before and wasn't impressed. In the end we roped the top to the cider press and hauled until our palms burned, while the rain came sideways through the rows.

By dusk the storm had gone over the hill and the pole stood straight again, a little crooked, with fresh bark scraped off one wing. The carver rang from the lane to ask whether we'd seen his chainsaw. Tom had hidden it in the wheelbarrow to stop him leaving. The hooked beak was pointing at the last orange light over the orchard, and I could have sworn the eagle was smirking at the lowest branch.