Fine line black tattoo of a stretching cat on the upper back between the shoulder blades, photographed from behind against a pale sandy background.

Stretching cat on upper back

Fine line · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A woman is photographed from behind with her head turned away and her hair falling forward. A single-line tattoo of a cat in a stretched pose, with its front paws extended and its tail curled up, sits between the shoulder blades. The cat is drawn in thin black outline with no shading, and the pale sand and bare skin keep the composition simple.

Fine line Back Cat Animal Outline

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The cat came with the building, the way the damp did. Nobody on Carrick Street knew whose she was. At two in the morning, when the last bus had rattled past the chip shop and the launderette shutter was down, she would climb the back stairs and settle on the warm lid of the big drier as if she had paid the rent.

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I worked nights at the bakery across the road, so I saw more of her than anyone. Every time I came off shift at five, she was on the bread rack by the back door, front legs stretched long in front of her, hindquarters high, tail hooked up like a question mark. She would hold it for ages, then look at me as though I were the one being rude. "Don't," I told her once. "I'm not doing it either."

In February the flour prices went up and the baker's wife said the rota would be cut. I came home with my coat still smelling of yeast and found the cat on the step, not stretching, just lying flat in the sleet. I picked her up. She weighed almost nothing. I carried her in and set her on the drier lid, still warm from somebody's late wash, and she stretched, slow and total, while I stood in the cold laundry and watched.

The next morning I stood on the kitchen tiles and did the same, palms flat, hips sinking back, and my spine cracked like a dropped tray. The cat watched from the windowsill with what I can only call approval. I still went looking for work that week. But I started my mornings that way now, and so did she.