Three tapered, dark blue-black curved lines tattooed on the neck behind the ear, shown in two side-by-side photographs.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Three curved strokes behind the ear

Neck · Black and grey · Photo

Three tapered curved lines sit side by side on the skin behind the ear, fading to points at their ends. The lines are dark blue-black with soft edges, and the left photo is a close view while the right shows the ear and a small round stud earring. The plain skin and loose hair in the background keep the focus on the marks.

Neck Curved line Ear Neck

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The cat came in off the tip with rain on her and a dead vole in her mouth, and your mother said the same thing she said every Tuesday, that the creature would have the lot of you out of house and home. You were already late for the screens. You pulled on the coat your brother had outgrown, tied your hair back with string, and went out past the wash-house where the wives stood with their arms folded against the wind. Down the row, the pit wheel turned against a sky the colour of wet slate.

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At the screens the girls sorted stone from coal on the moving belt, picking out the grey shale with bare fingers until the knuckles split. Mrs Pattinson stood at the end with her tally book. Your brother's shift came up without him, she said, not unkindly, and you did not look up from the belt. The cage had come up at half past four, and the men who carried the stretcher had walked slowly, the way men do when there is nothing left to hurry for.

That night you took the lamp down from its hook and went to the back wall where the cat had raked the plaster years ago, three long curved gouges, and you pressed your thumb into each one. Tom had laughed when she did it. He said she was keeping score. You ran your nail along the marks until the dust came away under it, then you turned the wick down and sat in the dark.

Morning came grey. You walked to the pit gates alone and gave the marshal your name, and you asked for the roll of the next shift, and the gatekeeper looked at you a long while before he wrote it down. Behind you the cat sat on the step with her tail wrapped round her feet, watching the road as if she expected someone to come up it.