Realism tattoo of three grey nails driven into the skin with red blood drips and dark shadows, on a man's shoulder and upper chest.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Three nails with blood drips on shoulder

Realism · Shoulder · Mixed · Photo

The tattoo shows three metal nails at different angles, each sitting in a small red wound with blood running down from it, and dark grey shadows extending diagonally beneath them. The nails are rendered with smooth grey shading and highlights, while the blood and inflamed skin use red and pink tones. The shot is taken close up at an angle across a bare shoulder and upper chest, with the tattoo as the clear focus against a plain pale background.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Mr Okafor, Flat 14 is empty now, so you can stop asking me about the stairwell. I went up with a torch on Tuesday because the lad from the council said the door was sticking. It wasn't the door. Someone had driven three nails into the frame just above the handle, one straight and two leaning like they'd been knocked in by a man in a hurry, and rust-brown streaks ran down from each head where the iron had sat in wet plaster all winter.

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I pulled the first one out with the claw of my hammer and it came away easy, which surprised me. The other two fought me. Mrs Dunmore from the flat below said the Wades had been arguing about a picture frame, though Mr Wade told the whole block he was only hanging his mother's clock. Whatever it was, the wall had taken it badly. There was a pink bloom of bruised plaster around each hole.

I filled them with grey filler and painted over. You can still see the shadows if the low sun comes across the landing at four o'clock, long and dark, pointing down towards the bins. I've stopped looking at them. Better to let people keep their own grudges than put my name on another repair order.

Please don't send the surveyor again. Tell him the building is sound and tell him I'm sound too. The nails are gone and the door opens fine now. Yours in plaster, Dennis Pryce, Caretaker, Halvard Court

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