Colour tattoo of a stylised shark with bold black outlines, blue and yellow shading and a red eye, on the outer thigh.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Stylised shark on the thigh

Neo-trad · Thigh · Colour · Photo

A stylised shark curves diagonally across the skin, with its tail at the top and open jaws with teeth at the bottom. Bold black outlines and sketchy hatched lines define the body, which is shaded in blues, greys and touches of yellow. A small red eye with a dark pupil sits near the mouth, and the photograph is taken straight on with a plain background.

Neo-trad Thigh Shark Fish Sea creature Fin Teeth Eye

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Ruth,

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The Constance came in on Tuesday with her net torn in two places and something dragging off the stern block that nobody had the nerve to cut loose. Dad said it was a porbeagle, Ted swore blind it was a blue, and when the winch finally swung it onto the quay it was longer than Ted himself. Its jaw hung open like a drawer someone had forgotten to shut, and the little red eye caught the sun and looked straight at the fish market as if it had a complaint to lodge.

Mum wanted it hosed off and taken to the tip before the Hendersons came round for their order. Dad would not hear of it. He spent the afternoon on an upturned crate with the logbook open on his knee, sketching the thing in blue biro, the sweep of its back, the stripes along its flank, the fin folded down like a page someone had dog-eared. He says the old skippers used to pin sharks to the wheelhouse door for luck, and that a man who has seen one at close quarters should keep a record of it, the same as the tides.

By Thursday the body had gone to the merchant and only the head was left, propped on a box in the shed. I went out this morning and the sun was on the eye again, and I thought of you on the Hull run, the way you used to hold a torch under the bunk to draw in your own notebook. Dad's drawing is on the back of the wheelhouse door now, pinned with two tacks. Come home at Christmas and see it. The gulls still won't go near the wall.

Love, Jo