Black ink flash design of a bare tree with a small figure on a swing, birds flying up and away, and curved script reading she said close your eyes, and free your mind, you're free to fly.

Tree, swing and birds with script lyric

Black and grey · Flash

A black silhouette illustration of a bare, twisted tree with a small figure sitting on a swing hanging from a low branch. A flock of birds rises from the branches and flies along an arc toward the upper right, with a line of cursive script following the same curve. The artwork is solid black on a plain white background, with no shading or colour, and the tree trunk sits at the lower left while the birds and text open the composition to the right.

Tree Bird Flying Script Silhouette Lyric

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Right, the band's having its tea, so sit still and let me finish, because the bit about the swing is the bit that matters. Mind you don't spill that lager on the floorboards. Stanley's mopped enough this month.

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The oak at the bottom of Harker's field had been dead on its feet since the great frost, all grey knuckles and bare limbs, and nobody would climb it. But Ada Pryce's father hung a swing from the lowest branch the summer she turned nine, a plank and two ropes greased with lard, and she went up and down so high the rope creaked like a ship's timber. Her mother hollered that she'd break her neck. Her mother was wrong about that, as it turned out, though not about much else.

Ada came to the tree each evening with a tin of bread crumbs, and by August the rooks were waiting in the crooked arms for her. One evening she told them to close their eyes, the way her gran used to tell her before sleep, and free their minds, because a mind tight as a fist can never lift. Then she pushed off, and the swing went up, and the birds went up with her, twelve of them, thirteen, a ragged flock tearing off the branches and streaming out over the wheat towards the sea.

They say she never came down. That's not true. She came down for her tea, same as you lot will in a minute. But when the rope swings out level over that field, watch the branches, because a shadow shakes loose from the oak every time. That's the only proof I've got. Now somebody fetch me a whisky, and let's have the waltz.