Dark line drawing of a stylised bird with a curled crest, swept wings and spiral tail on a forearm, in a henna-like style.

Stylised bird design on a forearm

Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A stylised bird with a curled crest, long swept wing and spiralling tail is drawn along the length of a forearm. The design uses bold, even black outlines with scroll and paisley-like curls, and it has no shading. It appears to be a henna-style design rather than a needled tattoo, and it is set in the centre of a plain, pale skin background.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell,

Keep reading

The rain has been coming sideways across the Saturday market since seven, and I have sold exactly two scarves and a jar of cloves. Mrs Okafor from the spice stall lent me her gazebo, so at least the bird stencils stay dry under the tarp. You will laugh, but the old man with the brass tins came back today. He wanted to know if I still had the crested bird, the one you traced onto your arm last summer with the brown paste from the bottle with no label.

I told him I had only the stencil sheets, and he shook his head and said that was not the same thing. He unfolded a square of waxed paper and there it was in faded ink: the long neck curling back on itself like a question, a wing swept up like a flag caught in wind, and the tail coming down in three spirals that end in points, like a thread pulled out of a knot. He said his mother drew it on his forearm before he went to sea, and that a bird drawn in one unbroken line will always find its way home. I did not argue. It was raining too hard to argue.

He paid me in coins I could not identify and left the paper with me. I have pinned it above the till. The next time the weather turns, I will trace it onto a clean sheet and bring it to you, and you can tell me whether the tail or the wing is wrong. I think the tail is wrong. I think it should run on past the edge of the page.

Yours in the wet, Ruth

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