Three tiny black swallows in flight in a diagonal line on the ankle, photographed on a pale foot over green grass.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Three small swallows on an ankle

Ankle · Black and grey · Photo

A close photograph of three small black swallows flying in a diagonal line across the side of an ankle. The birds are simple solid silhouettes with no shading, and the ink is crisp against pale skin. The soft-focus background of grass and a second foot at the lower right frames the tattoo.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Mags, the big top came down on Tuesday in Swindon, and the last of the roustabouts drove the lorry off with the canvas still wet. You told me to write once we reached the coast, so here I am on a bench above the harbour in Weymouth, which is not a town that has ever needed a circus.

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Halloran has taken the elephant's papers to a sale barn near Yeovil, and the clowns have scattered to a holiday camp in Skegness, but the swallows have not noticed any of it. They nested in the rafters of the winter quarters all spring, and when we pulled the tent down they simply lifted out of the seams, three of them, and set off west in a ragged line as if they had a rehearsal to get to. I stood there with a tent peg in my hand and watched them go until the sun was in my eyes.

I keep thinking about the ring master's last speech, the one he made to nobody in particular while we stacked the chairs. He said a show is only a promise that somebody will come back in the morning. I told him that was rubbish, and he laughed and said I would understand when I was older. I am older now, apparently, and I have eleven pounds, a bad knee and a programme with the printer's typo still in the eighth line.

So I am going to find work in a bakery in Bridport, learn to read the sky properly, and see whether those birds come back to the same rafters next year. Write to me care of the post office. I will be the one on the harbour wall with flour on my sleeves, squinting west.

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