Close photo of a bold black tribal-style scorpion tattoo with small red eyes on the upper arm of a person with light skin.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Tribal scorpion tattoo on the upper arm

Blackwork · Upper arm · Mixed · Photo

A solid black tribal-style scorpion fills most of the frame, with a curved segmented tail on the left and pincers spread on the right. The linework is bold and sharp-edged with solid black fills and sweeping flame-like shapes, and two small red dots mark the eyes. Pale skin surrounds the design, and a few small sparkle overlays appear across the ink.

Blackwork Upper arm Scorpion Tribal Tail Eye

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Put the kettle on again, Nell, and don't look at the rafters like that, it's only the rain. I'll tell you about the scorpion, since you've asked me every night this week. It came aboard the Harriet Quayle at Valparaiso, stowed in a crate of pears, black as a stove lid and curled tight as a fist. Nobody saw it climb out. We only knew because the bread knife was found on the deck with its point snapped clean off.

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Cook Tobias Renner, who had carried a cleaver through three wars and never once cut himself, went after it with a wet cloth. The thing rose up on its tail, pincers spread like two black sails catching a wind, and the red eyes lit like coals someone had breathed on. Tobias stood very still. Then he did what any sensible man does with an uninvited guest. He set a bowl of bacon fat on the flagstones and went to bed.

Every morning after that the bread rose twice as high, the stock never caught, and the rats that had plagued the hold went quietly over the side. The mate wanted it killed. The captain, who ate Tobias's suet pudding every Sunday, said a ship with a good cook was a ship with luck, and he would not argue with luck. So the scorpion stayed, sliding along the warm brass of the range rail like ink that had decided to be alive.

When we made Liverpool the crate was empty, and Tobias was dead in his bunk with a smile on him. The bowl was clean. Above the stove, where the heat was greatest, there was a faint black shape in the soot, tail curled, claws open, as if it had waited to say goodbye. Now get the lid off that pot, girl, the potatoes won't peel themselves.