Black and red treble clef tattoo with splatter effects on the back of a hand, with a musical staff and notes above it on the wrist.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Treble clef with red ink splatter on a hand

Hand · Mixed · Photo

A large black treble clef is the central subject, with a vertical red stroke running through its centre and red and black ink splatters spreading across the hand. A musical staff with several notes sits at the top of the frame, near the wrist. The linework is bold and loose, with shading in solid black and painted-looking red washes, and the tattoo is set against a dark background.

Hand Treble clef Musical staff Musical note Ink splatter Music

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The snow has taken the path twice since noon, so you stop trusting your feet and start trusting your ears. Somewhere below the Hollin Pass the chapel bell at Scarth is ringing badly, which means Mrs Ibbotson has climbed the tower herself again, and the choir will be standing in the cold waiting for the note you are carrying in your coat pocket.

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The fork is brass, bought from a bell-founder in Kendal who swore it had never been dropped. Its stem is wrapped in red wool so you can find it in the dark. Crows sit along the drystone wall above you, a row of them spaced like notes on wire, and when the wind comes up the gully it bends around the rocks in a long hooked curve. You hear it as a low G that you cannot quite reach, and you are sure it is laughing at you.

You try the fork against your knee. Nothing. The wool is soaked through and the metal has gone dead in your hand. You crouch in the lee of a boulder, unwrap it, breathe on it the way your grandfather did before he would let anyone touch his violin. The sun drops behind the ridge and spills across the snow in red splashes, as if someone has flicked a brush over the whole valley. You strike the fork on the stone.

It rings out clean and bright, and the sound goes down the mountain faster than you can. Below, the lamps of Scarth go out one by one, then come back on inside the chapel. The singing starts thin and late, then catches the note you gave it, and the whole valley hums with a voice that is not yours. For once the mountain has nothing to add.