Colour tattoo of a grey TIE fighter over a purple starfield, with red and teal banners reading take a ride on the dark side, on the leg.

TIE fighter with Dark Side banners

Traditional · Other · Mixed · Photo

A grey TIE fighter starship sits at the centre of the design, with a round cockpit and angled solar panels rendered in bold outlines and shaded greys. Two ribbon banners cross the image, one above and one below the ship, reading TAKE A RIDE and ON THE DARK SIDE in black capitals on red and teal. The background is a dark purple and blue starfield with small speckled stars, and the ink sits on a curved limb.

Traditional Other Banner Space Star wars Lettering

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Nobody at the reunion remembered that Trevor Pask was once expelled for drawing on the sports hall wall, but I remembered, because I was the one who held the stepladder. Thirty years on he sells commercial insurance in Leicester and keeps a shelf of model kits in his spare room. Over a warm lager in the function room of the Crown, he scrolled through his phone to show me a grey starship with a round cockpit and panels angled like folded hands, and I felt the old pull of the school library where we had all copied it into our exercise books.

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'Take a ride,' he said, grinning the grin we used to wear behind the bike sheds when someone dared us to do something stupid. 'That was Mick's line. He wrote it on the banner the night before the Christmas disco, in red felt tip, and we hung it over the stage until Mrs Hale tore it down for being disrespectful to the caretaker.'

I asked whether Mick was coming. Trevor shook his head and glanced at the door, as though Mick might walk in wearing the leather jacket he had worn in 1994. 'Went to the coast. Runs a bait shop now. Says he's never been happier.'

Trevor reached into his jacket and unfolded a square of paper, soft as cloth, the teal and red inks faded to the colours of an old tide. It was the corner of the banner, cut away years ago and kept. He pressed it flat between our glasses and smoothed it with his thumb, and for a moment the words read exactly as they had in the hall, all capitals, ON THE DARK SIDE, waiting for someone brave enough to climb aboard.