Two women seen from behind, each with a small black bird tattoo on the upper back near the neck.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Two small bird tattoos on upper backs

Back · Black and grey · Photo

Two women sit side by side with their backs to the camera, against a pale, washed-out background with a warm vintage tone. Each has a small, simple black bird tattoo at the top of the back, near the neck, with solid outlines and little or no shading. The composition is soft and centred on the two tattoos, with the rest of the skin and clothing kept in the background.

Back Bird Silhouette Two people

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Ruth,

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The man who did our birds has shut up shop. The sign on the door says gone to Spain, which I suppose is what people say when they mean they are finished with the town. I walked past on Tuesday with the bin bags and stood there longer than I should have, looking at the little card of swallows he kept in the window, the ones he never sold because they were too fiddly. You'll remember he said they were ugly as sin in the stencil and that he'd only do them if we promised not to ask for changes.

You didn't ask for changes. I did, once, and he laughed and turned the stencil round so the birds faced each other instead of both looking out to sea. That was your idea, wasn't it? You said a pair ought to be pointing at one another or else they were just two birds on their own.

Anyway, I went into the chippy after and the girl behind the counter said the swallows come back to the same beams under the pier every April, same as they always have, and nobody has ever properly explained how they find the way. So I'm telling you now, while you're still getting used to Lisbon: I'll be on the pier steps on the first warm day of April, and if you're not there I'll assume you've gone soft and forgotten the way home.

Love, Marnie