Three solid black swallow silhouettes tattooed on the side of a torso above the hip, shown in a black and white photo.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Three swallows on the side of the torso

Other · Black and grey · Photo

Three small black swallows fly in different directions across the skin of the side of the torso. The birds are rendered as solid dark silhouettes with soft edges and little internal detail, with no visible linework or shading. The photograph is black and white, with the tattoo set against the skin above a pair of unbuttoned denim jeans.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell,

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The swallows went this morning, all at once, which I took as a sign until I remembered they go every year and I am the one who needs signs. Three of them sat on the washing line for an hour before they left, then rose off the wire together and scattered over the harbour wall like someone had thrown a handful of pepper. One went north over the chapel roof. One dropped low toward the slipway. The third I lost against the grey, though I kept my eyes on it long after my neck complained.

I have been painting the name board for the Lilian again, the one Dad lettered in 1961 and never got to finish. Gold leaf on black, the old way. The brush wants a steady hand and I have got worse at keeping one since the winter. Mrs Pryce brought round a flask and asked after you, and I said you were somewhere with better weather, which is true enough. She said the swallows always come back to the same shed, and I said that was only because nobody had shut the door.

I found a feather in the bilge of the Lilian, a dark one, almost black when it's wet. I've kept it in the tin with Mum's thimble. Write when you get to Lisbon, and tell me whether the birds there fly the same way ours do, low over the water and then straight up, as if they have remembered something.

Your brother, Tom

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