Small black ink tattoo of two koi fish swimming in a circle on the inside of a wrist, in a brushstroke style.

Two koi fish in a circle on a wrist

Japanese · Other · Black and grey · Photo

A small tattoo of two black koi fish arranged head to tail in a loose circle on the inside of a wrist. The fish are drawn with bold, soft-edged brushstroke shading, with small ink marks around the ring suggesting fins. The ink is solid black on pale skin against a dark background, with fingers visible at the top of the frame.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

No, sit closer, the lamp will gutter before I reach the good part. You want to know why the carp never leave the pond at Hollin Lock? Because of Ada Pruett and her two fish, and she was a deal less patient than you lot.

Keep reading

Ada worked the narrowboat Thimble with her father for eleven summers, hauling coal up from Stourport and bringing back whatever the farms had to sell. At every lock she dropped a copper penny in the water for luck, and every lock keeper told her it was wasted money. The carp at Hollin ate those pennies along with the bread crusts, and they grew fat and proud on it.

Then one wet October the cut rose over the towpath, and her father went in after a snapped rope and didn't come up where she expected. She sat on the cabin roof three days, turning a penny over and over in her fingers and never letting it go. On the fourth morning two black carp rose beside the hull, nosing at the wood, circling each other with their heads near their own tails, round and round until the ripples drew a ring on the grey water.

She said, 'I'll not feed you.' They didn't seem to mind. They kept on through that morning and the night after, and she understood they were not asking for anything. They were only keeping the circle closed. In spring she came back to the lock and left her last penny on the beam, and the ring of ripples was still there, turning slow, as if somebody had only just stepped away from it.

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