Black flash sheet on a white background showing arrows, chevrons, two swallows, a dreamcatcher, feathers, an infinity loop, triangles and crossed arrows.

Tattoo flash sheet of arrows, swallows and feathers

Blackwork · Black and grey · Flash

A black and white flash sheet arranged in a loose grid, with arrows, chevrons, two swallows, a dreamcatcher, three feathers, an infinity loop with a small script word inside it, outlined triangles and a pair of crossed arrows. The arrows, chevrons and feathers are mostly solid black silhouettes, while the triangles and infinity loop use plain outlines. The designs are spaced apart on a plain white background with no body or skin visible.

Blackwork Geometric Arrow Chevron Swallow Dreamcatcher Feather Infinity Triangle Crossed arrows Script

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The swallows came back to the potting shed on the fourth of April, the same week your mother started nagging about the lawn. You noticed them from the kitchen window, two dark blades skimming over the fence panels, then swinging round so tight you thought they'd clip the washing line. You counted them the way she used to count stitches, under her breath, losing your place every time one dipped out of sight.

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By June the nest was a mud cup tucked above the door hinge, and the pair took turns diving in and out with beaks full of grass. You learned to prop the shed door open with a flowerpot so they wouldn't have to pass you. Your neighbour's boy asked why you were crouched by the water butt for an hour, and you told him you were waiting for the arrows to come back down. He laughed, because he thought you were being poetic, and you let him.

The old dreamcatcher from the bedroom window had gone to the charity shop in March, its hoop cracked, its feathers gone grey. You had kept one feather from it in the tin on the shelf, black and stiff, and that afternoon you took it out and stood it in the jar of pencils by the back step. The breeze off the allotments kept catching it, lifting it, setting it down again, as if it could not decide whether to go.

When the young birds finally rose from the eaves in late July, six of them in a wobbling line, you did not reach for your phone. You stood on the step with the dead feather in your hand and watched them cross the hedge and vanish over the rooftops, and you thought that the hardest thing your mother ever taught you was how to let a thing fly without looking back at the nest.