Colour half sleeve on an upper arm showing a black tree with swirling branches at the top, orange koi and blue waves in the middle, and pink lilies below.

Tree, koi and lilies on an upper arm

Botanical · Upper arm · Mixed · Photo

A black and grey tree with swirling branches sits across the top of the upper arm, with small leaves and blossoms within its branches. Below it, orange koi-like fish swim among blue and purple wave shapes and bubbles, with bold outlines and smooth colour shading. Pink lilies with green leaves fill the lower part of the sleeve near the elbow, and the composition flows from dark linework at the shoulder into vivid colour at the bottom.

Botanical Upper arm Tree Koi Fish Wave Bubble Lily Flower Leaves

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom, the kettle has gone quiet and the cook has gone ashore with a fever, so the galley is mine until Gibraltar. I am writing this on the back of the menu slate because the paper ran out at Tilbury. You will laugh, but the carp has come back. Not a real one, I know that. We are four days out and the fish in the scullery tub were all eaten by the bosun's cat in Biscay. I mean the old painted one on the bulkhead behind the flour bins, the one Mr Larkin scrubbed three times and gave up on.

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Last night I was rolling pastry when I saw it was not paint at all but water, a thin shine lifting off the plaster, and two orange flanks moving through the blue as if they had somewhere to be. Above them a black tree leaned out of the steam, bare as the elms in the churchyard at Hull, yet tiny blossoms kept opening at the tips of its branches, though nobody has painted those in years. Pink lilies stood at the bottom of the wall with their green leaves wet and bright.

I told the second mate. He said damp does strange things to a galley, then he stood a long while looking, and afterwards he asked for an extra slice of the seed cake, which he has never done. Mrs Puddicombe would have called that a blessing. I think he was only hungry for something that was not salt beef.

I will tell you what I think, since you always wanted the tale. The fish are going home. Every ship carries a little pond somewhere in her timbers, and when the lilies bloom at the foot of the wall they call the fish up through the blue toward the tree. Stop fretting about me. I have swept the flour and kept the sugar dry, and at Gibraltar I will bake you a sponge pale as those lilies and send it on the post boat.