Enlarged with AI from a smaller original
Two swallows on the chest
Traditional · Chest · Colour · Photo
Two swallows with outstretched wings and forked tails face outward, one on each side of the upper chest. The bold black outlines are filled with blue, red and yellow, with soft shading on the bodies and feathers. The birds are mirrored and evenly spaced across the chest, with the neckline and a blue strapless top below.
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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction
Ma Pell counted the swallows from the centre pole the morning the council's letter arrived, lifting one finger for each bird as if they were paying customers. Two, she said. Same as last year. They had nested in the rigging above the catch rig for three summers, and she reckoned they were the only audience we had left who never asked for their money back.
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I flew the high bar that season with Teodor on the catch, though by August we were down to six wagons parked in a stubble field outside Spalding, and the Saturday crowds were mostly farmers' children and a man with a terrier who came for the sawdust smell. Teodor never missed a catch. He said the trick was never to look at the ground, only at the hands coming towards you. I believed him for four seasons. Then the generator seized, the canvas went soft with rain, and I started looking at the ground.
On the last night, the swallows dropped out of the roof vent while I hung upside down, and they flew straight through the lamplight and out of the open flap, wings flat, tails forked like a pair of shears cutting the dusk. Two birds, mirrored, never touching. I watched them until my knees gave out and Teodor's hands closed on my wrists.
Ma Pell sold the tent in October. I kept the bar, and I kept the birds, and every spring I still count two.
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