Black and grey storm cloud with a lightning bolt beneath it, a traditional style tattoo on the forearm, covered with clear plastic wrap.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Storm cloud and lightning bolt on forearm

Traditional · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A small storm cloud with a bold black outline and a lightning bolt hanging below it sits on the skin, covered by clear plastic wrap held with tape. The cloud is built from rounded lobes with soft grey shading and light highlights, while the bolt is solid black with a sharp zigzag edge. The subject is centred against a plain, pale background.

Traditional Forearm Lightning bolt

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Put the kettle on again, Dilys, the storm isn't finished with us yet. Look at it coming in over Skerry Point, that great grey cauliflower of a cloud, sat on the water like it's waiting to be asked inside. My father stood at the gallery rail with his pocket watch open and counted under his breath. Seven, eight. Then the flash came down the rock like a zip being pulled, and the cloud tipped its black head as if it had dropped something precious.

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The winter of the great wreck, a boy came up the path with a dog and no coat. Nineteen, soaked through, shouting that a light had moved on the cliff. It was only the lamp, my father said, lamps don't move. But the boy swore he'd seen it swing out over the gap, and by then the cloud had sunk so low it lay on the gallery like wet wool. My father sat the boy on the stool by the stove and told him to count with him. The thunder rolled. The boy counted. Five, six, seven. The bolt struck the iron railing a yard from where he'd been standing, because he'd stepped back to fetch the dog.

It left a black zigzag burned into the rail, and that mark is still there, the one you can run your thumb along in the dark. My father kept the watch open on the sill ever after, and he never once let anyone whistle on the lamp stairs. The boy stayed on as assistant and later kept the light himself. Some nights, when the cloud comes in low, I hear him counting up the stairs.