Black and grey dotwork tattoo on a calf showing a storm cloud with lightning, a wave and a sailing ship rising out of a floral teacup.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Storm cloud and ship in a teacup on a calf

Dotwork · Calf · Black and grey · Photo

A storm cloud with lightning and rain dashes sits above a teacup and saucer, with a wave and a sailing ship rising out of the cup. The teacup has a floral pattern of roses and leaves, and the cloud, waves and ship are built from dense stippled dots alongside bold black outlines. The design is entirely black and grey and fills the calf in a single vertical composition.

Dotwork Traditional Calf Lightning Rain Wave Sailing ship Teacup Saucer Rose Flower Leaves

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

You have the good cup out again, the one with the roses, though its handle has been mended once already and Mam would have had something to say about it being used on a Tuesday. Rain has been coming sideways down the pit row since dinner, rattling the sash as if it wants in, and your sister stands at the range with her arms folded, watching the kettle like it owes her money.

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The argument is about the six o'clock whistle. It didn't go. The lamp-room boys say there was a fall at the far drift, and nobody will say whose name is on the board. You pour too fast, and the tea slops over the rim into the saucer, and she laughs in the way that isn't laughing. 'You always make a storm out of nothing,' she says. You tell her that cup is the only thing in this house that doesn't rattle, and you mean it as a joke, and it doesn't land as one.

The back door bangs before either of you can answer. It's Dad, black to the eyes, cap in both hands, turning it round and round. The cage stuck at the bottom and they had to walk up the shaft by the ladders, he says, as if it were a fine evening for a stroll. Your sister drops the spoon. You stare at the cup in your hands, at the roses and the dark leaves, and think of the little ship you used to draw in the margins of your school exercise books, sailing out of the teapot on a sea you made up.

Dad sits down and holds out his hand for the cup. You give it to him. He drinks it standing up, the way he always has, and when he hands it back the rain has stopped and the cloud over the rooftops has broken into a thin, watery light. You hang the good cup back on its hook. Some storms, you decide, are best kept in china.