Traditional style colour tattoo of a teal teacup with red roses, leaves and the words Death Before Decaf on the forearm.

Teacup and roses on a forearm

Traditional · Forearm · Colour · Photo

A teacup with a teal body, orange and yellow banding and a curled gold handle sits at the centre, with a saucer beneath it. Two red roses with yellow centres flank the cup, with dark leaves and a dotted stem, and the words DEATH BEFORE DECAF are set in black capitals along the bottom. Bold black outlines and solid fills dominate, with some soft shading on the cup and saucer, and the photo is taken outdoors at an angle.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Ted, Sorry the postcard was late. The road was shut for three days after the wind, and the Halfway Cup has had more custom than the highway patrol. Yesterday a young man in a pressed shirt came in off the salt flats and asked, very politely, whether we did a decaf. I pointed at the sign over the counter, the one Dad hand-lettered in 1971 with two red roses either side of a steaming cup, and I told him what it says. He read it twice and ordered a double.

Keep reading

He was an engineer, he said, sent out to measure the new bypass. He had a tape measure in his pocket and a notebook full of figures that did not add up to anything a sensible person would want. While I poured, he told me the bypass would take the traffic away and leave the Cup stranded in the middle of nothing. I told him that was what the roses were for. Roses don't need traffic.

When he finished, he left a crisp fifty under the saucer and a note: Keep the gold handle. It's the only thing on the lot worth saving. I have not worked out whether he was joking. The handle was bent when the lorry took the fence in March, and I have been meaning to straighten it.

So I've put the kettle on, Ted. Come up at Easter and bring your own cup. We'll see who blinks first.

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