Close-up of a leg with two solid black brushstroke bands tattooed across the calf, in a blackwork style.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Two black brushstroke bands on a calf

Blackwork · Calf · Black and grey · Photo

The photograph shows a lower leg with two horizontal bands of solid black ink, one wider and one shorter, each with ragged, dry-brush edges. The lower band breaks into fine streaks toward its right end, while the upper band is dense and even. The ink is black only, set against warm skin with a blurred background of light and a small patch of red and yellow at the left edge.

Blackwork Calf Brushstroke Band Stripe Abstract

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom,

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The Harbour Stores fascia came down on Tuesday, and I should have told you about the job before I started it, not after. Mrs Pargeter wanted the name gone and nothing put in its place. "Paint over it, Walter," she said, "and paint it so nobody can tell what was there." I told her I could do that, and then I spent three nights working out how.

I ended up with two bands. The top one went on first, a full-width stroke of lamp black dragged across the board in one go with a four-inch flat brush that was my father's. It went on dense and even, and I was pleased with it until I stepped back and saw it looked like a stripe of mourning. The lower band I did in the morning, once the damp had lifted off the boards. I meant it to be short, a neat stop, but the brush ran dry halfway through and I kept going, dragging the last inch with almost nothing on the bristles. It frayed into streaks like rain blowing sideways across a window.

Mrs Pargeter came out with her tea, looked at it a long time, and said it was the first honest sign on the front. She paid me in cash and asked nothing about the streaks.

I keep thinking about the gap between the bands, which is exactly the width of my thumb. Come home for Easter and I'll show you. The shop is shut now, and nobody has to read it.

Your brother, Walter