Sketchy black linework winged bird with a red heart and red and black lettering tattooed along the side of a ribcage.

Winged bird and lettering on ribs

Lettering · Ribs · Mixed · Photo

A sketch-style black linework drawing of a bird with spread wings sits on the side of the torso, with a small red heart outline beside its head. Lettering in red and black block and script reads across the lower part of the design, with a black X-like mark at the right edge. Black ink dominates the linework, while the red provides accents in the lettering, heart and a red wash near the bottom left.

Lettering Ribs Wing Bird Heart Lettering Script Sketch Symbol

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Mae had counted the rows twice before the starling hit the netting. It came down in the Discovery block, wings still open as if it had only paused mid-argument with the wind. Her uncle Tom would want it moved before the pickers came through at six, because a dead bird in the rows meant wasps, and wasps meant the Cox's would split on the tree before anyone got them off.

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She knelt on the grass with her gloves on. The bird was lighter than she expected, all feather and cold bone under a skin of dust. Someone had painted START, STOP, GO on the wooden crate beside the tractor, the way Tom did when he was telling the lads which trailer to fill. She had never asked what it meant. The old man had a habit of making rules out of things nobody had asked about.

She carried the bird to the hedge and found a red wax crayon in her coat pocket, the kind the kids used for labelling punnets. Along the flint of the bank she drew a small heart, then thought better of it and rubbed it out with her thumb. Nothing about the place needed a heart.

When she came back, Tom was standing at the gate with two mugs of tea steaming in the cool. 'You moved it,' he said. 'Good girl.' He handed her one and nodded at the crate. 'Start, stop, go. Works on bees, works on lorries. Thought it might work on you.' She drank the tea, which was stewed, and found that for once she was not waiting to be told what to do next.