Colour tattoo of two cartoon bats with outlined wings and three yellow stars on the inner forearm, in a soft, simple illustrative style.

Two cartoon bats and stars on a forearm

Fine line · Forearm · Mixed · Photo

Two small cartoon bats with rounded faces, large ears and outstretched wings sit on the inner forearm, one above the other, with three yellow five-pointed stars scattered around them. The bats are outlined in black with soft peach and brown shading, and the stars are filled in flat yellow. The photo is taken close up against a dark background, with the tattoo filling most of the frame.

Fine line Forearm Bat Star Cartoon Animal

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The loft ladder has gone slick with frost, so you take it one rung at a time with the torch clamped between your teeth. Up top, the hay lies flattened in a long dent where nobody has slept since summer. Dad says the barn will be sold by March and the men with clipboards will want it empty, so you have come to check for anything that should not be left behind.

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Nothing should be left behind, Gran would have said, except the bats. She taught you to count them from the bottom rung without touching, the way you would count sheep through a gate. Two hang in the far corner from the same beam, one above the other, wrapped in their wings like folded umbrellas with faces. Their ears are tall and soft and turned forward, and when your torch sweeps past they do not stir. Gran said that was the whole trick of winter: stay still, eat little, dream of July.

Outside the hayloft door the sky has cleared, and three stars sit low over the top field, bright as the buttons on your old waxed coat. You can see them through the gap where the boards have warped. You tell the bats about them under your breath, which is a daft thing to do, and then you tell them about the men with clipboards and the new people who want to turn the loft into a kitchen with a view.

Before you go down you wedge a bundle of hay into the gap so the draught won't reach the far corner. You leave the door open a finger's width so the stars can keep watch. By morning the frost will have gone to dew on the rail, and you will be somewhere else, but the beam will still be there, and so will they.