Black tribal-style sea turtles with swirling waves and a line of script above them, tattooed on the side of the ribs.

Three tribal turtles and script on the ribs

Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

Three solid black tribal-style sea turtles sit on a swirling wave motif, with the largest turtle in the centre and smaller ones above and to the left. A thin line of cursive script runs across the upper ribs, partly visible. The ink is black on light skin, shown in a close, side-on photograph with the torso filling the frame.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

You are the only one awake in Porthmellin who is not a gull. The bakery on Quay Lane still smells of last night's embers, and the flour is cold in its sacks, so you knead the first batch by feel, the way your uncle taught you when the ovens were older than you. Outside, the tide is pulling back from the harbour wall, and through the steamed glass you can see the boats leaning on their ropes.

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The turtle came in on a Tuesday, packed in a crate of fish trays from the Penzance lorry, though the driver swore he had never seen it loaded. It was a green thing the size of a dinner plate, its shell crusted with barnacles, its flippers working at the air. Your uncle wrapped it in a wet tea towel and set it in the deep sink, then stood over it for an hour, muttering that sea creatures did not belong in a kitchen. You kept the bread going. Three loaves an hour, the same as always.

By five the sky over the headland has gone the colour of weak tea, and you lift the first tray from the proving cupboard. Behind you the back door scrapes. The sea has been at the step again, leaving a fan of wet sand and a single curled strand of kelp. You will carry the turtle down to the slipway before the bakers' van arrives, tip her in where the swell runs clean, and watch her flippers find the water.

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