Abstract watercolour-style tattoo, a tall band of blue, pink, orange and teal, running down the spine from the nape of the neck across the upper back.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Vertical colour strip down the spine

Back · Colour · Photo

A woman is photographed from behind, showing a narrow vertical tattoo that runs down the centre of her spine from the nape of her neck. The band has soft gradient shading that moves from deep blue and purple at the top to pink, orange and teal lower down, with a textured, wavy edge. The plain background and dark top keep the focus on the colour and the tattoo's ribbon-like composition.

Back Ribbon Abstract Gradient Spine Wave

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell,

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The sky over Hartley Road is doing the thing you always said it would, going from ink to bruise to that strange rose before the milk van turns the corner. I have the first tray of rye in and the oven door is open a crack, so the room smells like something being forgiven. Mrs Achebe from number nine came for her bloomer at half four again and told me I look like I haven't slept since you left. I told her that was the flour.

Father's ledger is still under the till. I found it on Tuesday wedged behind the proving cupboard, and on the page where he wrote what he owed the mill there's a column of blue ink he never explained. You'll remember how he used to say the bread knew the time before the clock did. I think he meant the ribbon of sky. He'd wet his thumb and hold it up at the back door as if he were reading a tide.

I have kept your side of the bench clear. The brass scales are polished, the cooling racks are wiped, and I've stopped pretending the starter needs you. It doesn't. It needs feeding at six, and I do it at six.

Come home for the wedding, or don't, but if you do, come before the light. The window at the back has a gap the width of a hand. When the strip of colour comes through it, deep blue at the top, then pink, then that green-grey like the sea off Cromer, with the edges rippling like the cloth on the proving tins, it falls across the floured table exactly where you used to knead. Stand in it. I'll have the kettle on.

Your loving brother, Tom