Black and grey tattoo on a forearm of an upside-down bat with a smiling moon above it and a bird's beak beside it, in blackwork and dotwork style.

Upside-down bat and moon on a forearm

Blackwork · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A solid black bat hangs upside down, with fine white lines marking its wing folds and face. Above it sits a stippled moon with a smiling face, and a partial bird's beak with a sharp tip appears at the right edge of the bat. The tattoo is in black ink on the inner forearm, shown against a dark background on the left and a pale wall on the right.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Tuesday, and the fair has packed up early because of the wind, so I have the whole of the empty field to myself and nothing to do but write this. Mam says I am to stop bringing the ledger out in the dark, but the ledger is where I keep the things I see, and tonight I saw the bat again. It hangs from the top bar of the Dodgem shed the way it always does, wings folded like a dropped umbrella, head down, watching me with the patience of a thing that knows it will still be there tomorrow.

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The moon was up over the ferris wheel, fat and grinning, the way the old man who ran the coconut shy used to grin before he lost the caravan at cards. He told me the moon was a face that had been painted over by people who wanted a sensible sky. I did not believe him then. I am less sure now.

When I climbed the step to bolt the shed, the bat dropped, opened, and was gone over the top of the big top, and I heard a bird call from the far hedge, sharp as a hatpin. Nan would say that bird was the one that takes the ones who go up the steps too late. She would also say I should eat something. So I am writing this with a pie in my lap, bolting the door in my head, and telling the moon that I am not afraid of it, which is a lie I am getting better at.

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