A grey tabby kitten held up by two hands, with a red and black floral tattoo sleeve on one forearm and a small black tattoo near the wrist of the other.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Tabby kitten held by tattooed forearms

Forearm · Mixed · Photo

A grey tabby kitten with its front paws raised lies on its back, held by two hands against a grey textured carpet. The arm on the right carries a dense sleeve of red floral forms with black shading, and a small black tattoo sits near the wrist of the left arm. The top-down framing centres the kitten, with the tattooed arms leading the eye in from the edges.

Forearm Kitten Cat Hand Rose Floral

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

You hear it before you see it, a thin complaint from the back of the left luggage cage at Marsh Haddon, behind a hatbox and a bag of golf clubs nobody has claimed since March. The night porter has gone for his tea, and the cage smells of wet umbrellas and the lavender cleaner Doreen keeps in a jam jar by the till. You crouch, lift the hatbox, and a tabby kitten looks up at you with its ears flat and its mouth open on a sound far too big for it.

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It is grey and striped like pencil shading, with a white bib and one back foot tucked under as though it has been carried a long way in a tote bag. The luggage tag on the wicker hamper beside it says Mrs Okonedo, Platform Two, Florist, and under that someone has written in biro, Leeds, please. Inside the hamper, a few cut roses have gone brown at the edges, and a tea towel printed with faded red blooms has been folded over a empty tin of sardines.

You wrap the kitten in your hi-vis and carry it down the stairs, past the ticket barrier and the dozing guard, out to the platform where the last Leeds train is already breathing steam. Somebody has to be the one who knows where things belong, and tonight that is you. The kitten hooks its claws into the fabric and purrs like a kettle just beginning to sing.

The florist's phone rings out twice before a woman answers, out of breath, and says she left the hamper on the 17:52 and never thought to look under the seat. You tell her it is safe, that it will be at the desk in the morning. When you slip the phone back into your pocket, the kitten has rolled itself belly up against your palm, paws raised in the air as if it means to catch the light from the lamps overhead.