Two clenched fists with traditional-style tattoos on the back of the hands, a white flying bird with green splashes on the left and a dark brown bat with red splatter on the right.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

White bird and red-splashed bat on two fists

Traditional · Hand · Mixed · Photo

Two clenched fists are shown against a dark surface, each with a tattoo on the back of the hand. The left hand has a white bird with spread wings and green ink washes, while the right hand has a dark brown bat with a red splatter behind it. The bold outlines and splashes are set against the dark background, with tattooed forearms visible above.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The two brothers had never agreed on anything, not even the weather. So when the lamplighter came round the square of Harrowgate at dusk and found them squaring up outside the closed cutlery shop, he simply waited, as he always did, with his pole across his shoulder.

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The dove-keeper's son had a white bird on his knuckles that he said would carry him out of any trouble. The bat-catcher's boy had a dark bat with red wings, and he said it would bring him back from any fall. Neither would give ground. The argument ran on until the church clock struck nine, and then the bat-catcher's boy opened his fist to show the sky was clear and the bird was nowhere to be seen, only a green smudge where it had been painted on the stones.

The lamplighter lit the last lamp above them and spoke without turning round. Birds go where they are sent, he said, and bats go where the dark is. Neither of you sent anything anywhere tonight. You stood in a square and shouted at each other until the light went out of it.

They looked at their hands, then at each other, and for the first time that year neither of them said a word. The lamplighter walked on towards the bridge, and behind him the two fists slowly unclenched.

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