Black and grey fine line swallow on the left inner wrist and an open birdcage on the right inner wrist, photographed with the palms facing up.

Swallow and open birdcage on wrists

Fine line · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

Two small tattoos sit on the inner wrists, a solid black silhouette of a swallow in flight on the left with a soft grey smudged trail behind it, and an open birdcage with a tilted door on the right. The cage is drawn in fine grey linework with light shading on the bars and base. The palms face the camera against a pale, softly blurred indoor background, with the two tattoos mirrored across the centre.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Mum, the ferry was late again, so I've been sat on a plastic chair at the terminal in Dover with a cup of tea that tastes of the cup. I wanted you to know I'm alright before the signal goes. Dad's lot at the lock-up will have told you I've gone, but they won't have told you the bit about the gull that stole Sanjay's sandwich and then looked at him like he'd done something to it.

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The man at passport control asked what I was bringing back and I said nothing, which was true and not what he wanted to hear. He turned my passport over twice, as if the stamps might have changed. Then he waved me through with the face people use for someone who's been lucky without deserving it. I didn't tell him about the cage. The one Nan kept the budgie in until it died, the little door that never shut properly. You remember how she said it was never really locked, only stuck?

The swallows came in over the harbour wall while I was waiting, dozens of them, dropping low over the water and climbing again like they'd never once been told where to stop. I thought of the two of us at the kitchen table, the ink still tacky, you saying it looked like a scratch on a photo. I said it looked like something that had got out.

The boat's calling now. I'll ring from the other side, and if the line's bad I'll write again. Keep the spare key under the tile. I haven't forgotten where it is.

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