Swallow, banners and roses on ribs
Traditional · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo
A swallow with raised wings sits above two banners carrying lettering that reads Win or lose, only I hold the key to my future, with two roses and a key below. The linework is bold and outlined, with grey shading on the wings, petals and banner folds. The tattoo fills the side of the ribs in black and grey, with a cloth edge and a hand visible at the top of the frame.
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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction
Nell had bet her brother the potting shed key that her Crimson Ashby would take the blue ribbon at the August show. Win or lose, their father had said, tapping the padlock, only the one who grows the thing holds the key. Col had laughed at that. Now he sat on the bench at dawn, flicking the key across his knuckles while swallows dropped mud from the eaves onto the dahlias.
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"Put it back," Nell said, but he only whistled, the way he had when they were small and he had raided the Pembrokes' orchard. She counted what she had: fifteen hundred aphids picked off by hand since May, a cramped hand from the cold frame, three nights of watering by lantern. Col had cut his best roses at sunrise and carried them down the lane in a galvanised bucket, whistling all the way.
At the tent the judge bent to each bloom and breathed in, then moved on. He stopped at Nell's crimson, lifted one petal with a fingertip and said nothing for a long moment. The card went down beside it in red ink. Col pretended to study the marrows.
That evening she found the key still lying on the bench where he had left it. She hung it on its nail and, for once, left the shed door standing open, so the swallows could come and go over the rose beds.
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