Black and grey sketch-style tattoo of three faceless figures standing on a ground line, one holding a balloon, on the lower leg.

Three sketched figures and a balloon on a calf

Calf · Black and grey · Photo

The tattoo shows three simple figures standing on a curved ground line, with one figure holding a string attached to a balloon at the left edge. The figures have no facial features, and the linework is loose and hand-drawn, with light hatched shading on clothing and hair. The design is rendered entirely in black and grey ink on a close crop of skin.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The balloon had caught on the mooring rope again, so Ada spent the first ten minutes of the morning on her knees on the quay, working the red string free while the boats knocked against the wall behind her. Her father stood over her with his hands jammed in his oilskin pockets. He said nothing, which was how he showed he was in a hurry. Gulls fought over the bait crates. Nobody on Harbour Row had ever seen a fisherman's family with a balloon, and Ada had been told so twice before breakfast.

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Her mother had bought it at the Scarrow fair the week before, paying the man with the striped awning in coins from the jar on the dresser. It had floated above the three of them ever since, bumping gently at the level of Ada's shoulder, and her mother had laughed each time the wind tried to carry it out to sea. Today it was only a bit of rubber and breath, and Ada thought it looked foolish against all that grey water.

When the Morag Jean came round the point at noon, her father was the first to see the sail, and he finally took his hands out of his pockets. He crouched beside Ada and held out his palm for the string. She gave it to him, and he tied it twice around the iron ring on the bollard, neat as a shoelace. Then he lifted her onto the wall, and together they watched the boat come in low and slow, the balloon nodding above them, as if it had been waiting all morning to be useful.

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