Black and grey realism tattoo of a vintage microphone with a treble clef, music staff and loose notes on the upper arm.

Vintage microphone and music notes on upper arm

Realism · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A vintage ribbed microphone sits at the centre of the design, with a treble clef above it, a curled cable below and a music staff with several notes wrapping around it. The microphone is shaded in fine gradients of black and grey, giving it a metallic, three-dimensional look against the lighter skin. The composition is shown from the side on a shoulder and upper arm, with the staff lines fading outward to the right.

Realism Upper arm Microphone Music staff Treble clef Musical note Cable

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The clock above the nurses' station reads ten to three, and you have forty minutes before the cleaners start on the corridor. Mrs Adeyemi in Bay Four wants the waltz with the accordion again. Lenny in side room two has asked for the shipping forecast, which you have decided not to find funny. You sit at the desk with the old ribbed microphone the League of Friends bought in 1974, the one nobody has managed to find a new cable for, and you wind the lead around your fingers while the request slips stack up under the stapler.

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Hospital radio runs on a shelf of cassettes and a turntable that skips at every chorus. Tonight the rota says Sister Okafor is off, the bank nurse knows nothing, and the switchboard lights blink red for Bay Six. You read the requests into the mic anyway, because the ward goes quiet when you do, and because someone once told you the voice carries further after midnight.

At twenty past three a call comes through from the end bed, from a man you have never met, asking for the song his wife used to hum while she pegged out the washing. It is not on the shelf. You put on the B-side of something slow instead, then lean into the grille and hum the tune yourself, badly, and hear a cough, then the rustle of someone turning over to listen.

When the record finishes, the switchboard is silent. The rota still says nobody is on until eight. On the back of a request slip you write Bay Six, end bed, and underneath, in pencil, the first bars of the tune you hummed, the notes climbing off the page as if they have somewhere better to be.