Watercolour-style monarch butterfly and handwritten script on a woman's upper back, with a black circle and a small heart beside it, placed on the shoulder blade.

Watercolour butterfly and script on upper back

Lettering · Back · Mixed · Photo

A woman's upper back shows a watercolour-style monarch butterfly in orange and yellow, with splashes of pink and green behind it. Handwritten black script runs across the left side of the design, with a bold black circle and a thin connecting line beside it. The composition sits on the shoulder blade, with the butterfly's wing edges and a small heart balancing the text.

Lettering Back Butterfly Monarch butterfly Quote Script Circle Watercolour splash Heart Flower Sunshine

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Ines, you will never guess who turned up at the reception with a bucket of paints. Pilar, the florist's cousin from Ledbury, arrived at four o'clock with a monarch she had sketched on the back of a seed packet, and she spent the whole afternoon painting it onto the tablecloths while the bride's mother looked on in horror. Mum called it vulgar. Dad said it was the only thing anyone would remember.

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Still, I think she was right to bring it. The marquee had been grey with rain until the sun broke over the orchard, and the light went straight through the wings the way it did in Grandad's slides. Someone had pinned a card beside the cake that read Just living is not enough, said the butterfly, one must have sunshine, freedom and a little flower. Nobody knew who had written it. Pilar swore it came from a paperback she left on a Shrewsbury bus, and I think she was pleased we couldn't check.

After the speeches, Ruth and Tomas sat at the long table with a fountain pen and a jar of blue ink. They didn't sign the register the usual way. They drew a black ring around both their names, then a thin line running from it out to the edge of the paper, and a tiny heart at the end of the line, as if they were pinning themselves to something that would hold still for once.

I kept the seed packet. The butterfly on it is nothing like the one on the napkins, but I took it home anyway. Tell Mum the bucket is still in my boot, and that I have decided not to drive it back until the weather turns.