Black and grey photo of three small bird silhouettes in flight tattooed on a person's upper back near the shoulder blade.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Three birds in flight on the upper back

Back · Black and grey · Photo

Three small, solid black bird silhouettes in flight are arranged in a diagonal line on the upper back. The shapes are simple and bold with no visible shading, set against smooth skin. The black and white photograph also shows blonde hair and a white knit jumper slipped off one shoulder.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Marnie, the gulls have gone quiet since the boats came in, and Mum says that means weather. This morning I counted them from the harbour wall, three terns lifting off the breakwater one after another, the way you used to count the lamps on the ferry when we were small. Nobody else on Quay Street bothers counting anything now.

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Dad's boat, the Esther May, went out on Tuesday with Callum Rowe aboard, and it came back on Wednesday with only Callum. He won't say much. He sits on the slipway with his hands between his knees and watches the water, and every so often he tips his head up when something passes overhead, as if checking it's still there. I haven't told him I've started doing the same.

Yesterday I found the old chart in the drawer under the tide tables, the one with your pencil marks on it. You'd drawn three small crosses past the Skerries and written home by Sunday beside them in capitals, pressing so hard the lead broke through. I've pinned it above the kettle. I'm not sure what I expect it to tell me.

This evening three birds came in low over the water, black against the last of the light, the one at the back falling behind and then catching the others up. I stayed on the wall until I couldn't tell them from the swell. Come home when you can, love. The kettle's on and the chart is still here.

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