Fine line black tattoo of a winged ball with small script reading I open at the close, on the inner wrist.

Winged ball and script on inner wrist

Fine line · Other · Black and grey · Photo

A small tattoo of a round ball with two thin feathered wings sits on the inner wrist, with the words I open at the close in a delicate script beneath it. The linework is fine and uniform, and the design is shaded in black and grey with light hatching on the wings. The tattoo is shown in a close, straight-on photo against a dark background, with the wrist filling most of the frame.

Fine line Other Wing Script Text

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom, the ball came ashore on Tuesday, wedged in the kelp below the lower steps, and I nearly kicked it back into the surf before I saw the wings. They are thin as a moth's, feathered along the edges, and the brass has gone the colour of weak tea. Father says it belongs to the wreck of the Marigold, the coaster that went onto the Hollin rocks in March. He says a great many things since the funeral, most of them to the gulls.

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I have tried to open it. There is no seam, no hinge, nothing but a line of cramped letters around the middle: I open at the close. I have turned it over the lamp oil and the kettle and once, in a temper, against the iron rail, and it only rang like a bell with a cold in it.

Yesterday, at the turn of the tide, I sat on the gallery with it in my palm and read the words again and thought about what Mrs Pryce said to me at the chandler's counter, that a door is only a door until somebody shuts it behind them. Then I thought I understood. The ball will not open when you pull at it. It opens when the day is finished and the lamp is lit and nobody is looking for it any more.

So at dusk I set it on the sill, turned the wick up, and went down to bank the stove. When I came back the ball was lying open beside the glass, and inside it, rolled small as a boiled sweet, was a folded note in your handwriting.