Fine line black tattoo of two small stick figures holding hands on the side of a ribcage, with a red berry-patterned top in the background.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Two stick figures holding hands on ribs

Fine line · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

A close photograph of a small black tattoo of two stick figures holding hands, placed on the side of the ribcage. The linework is thin and even, with no shading, and the figures are simple outlines. The skin is in sharp focus against a black and white background and red berry-patterned fabric, which provides the only colour in the frame.

Fine line Ribs Stick figure Hand Outline Couple

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The Marigold leaves the harbour at four, when the gulls are still asleep on the chimney pots and the water is the colour of wet slate. By the time you have hauled the third pot your fingers have stopped reporting back, so you work by counting the rope through your palms instead of feeling it. Dai stands at the wheel with a flask wedged between his boots, singing the same two verses of a hymn his nan taught him, getting the second one wrong on purpose so you will correct him.

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The sea is kind until about ten. After that it begins to test the boat the way a dog tests a fence, leaning, looking for the gap. The net snags on something below, the stern lifts, and you go over the rail with one boot still on the deck and nothing but cold air to hold. Dai's hand closes on your wrist before you have finished being afraid. He does not shout. He just holds on, braced against the coaming, while the boat finds its balance again and the water lets go of your leg.

Back at the quay that evening your hands are too swollen to hold a mug, so he holds it for you. Later, when the lamps come on along the wall, you crouch at the slipway with a stub of chalk and draw two small figures, all sticks and round heads, one a little taller. You join their hands with a single line. Dai watches from the bollard and tells you the proportions are wrong, that you have made them far too thin to survive a winter.

By morning the tide has taken them, the chalk worn to grey smudges. You go down anyway and draw them again, and again he says the arms are too short. You let him argue. Some lines are only worth drawing so that someone else can complain about them.