Close-up of two solid black parallel bands tattooed around an upper arm just above the elbow, worn with a blue t-shirt.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Two black bands around an upper arm

Geometric · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

The photograph shows a person's upper arm, cropped below the face, with two solid black bands wrapped fully around the arm just above the elbow. The bands are plain, evenly spaced and sharply edged, with no shading or fine detail. The image is in colour, with a blue t-shirt and dark jeans around the tattoo and a blurred urban background.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell,

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The ovens were already ticking when Mr Okafor took me through the back door on Tuesday. He didn't say good morning, only pointed at the proving racks and said the dough would not wait for anybody's feelings. I have worked nights at the Crumb and Crust on Mill Lane for eleven days now, and I've decided I like the quiet of four o'clock better than any hour I kept at the sorting office.

Every tin on the shelf above the mixer has two black bands painted round its middle, one above the other, so that nobody mistakes a tin loaf for a cob. Mrs Pryce on the till says they came from the first oven he ever bought secondhand. Tomasz says they're from a shipyard in Hull. Mr Okafor says they are a count of how many winters the place has survived, and I took that for a joke until I saw him rub flour into the paint with his thumb, the way you'd polish a plate.

Last night the bell on the deck oven went at ten to five and I was the only one who heard it. I got the peel under the first tray and pulled out thirty loaves that would have burned black. When I turned round he was standing in the doorway with flour to his wrists and a look on his face I had not seen before. He said, "Good girl," and went back to the mixer without another word.

I still don't know what the bands mean. I'm starting to think they are a promise, or a rope tied round something to keep it from drifting. Come up at Easter and judge for yourself. Bring your wool socks, it's bitter on the loading bay.

Love, Bea

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