Black and grey winged cats with yellow eyes above a cat face, an Egyptian-inspired tattoo on the back.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Winged Egyptian cats with cat face

Back · Mixed · Photo

The tattoo shows two seated black cats with wings and collar details, mirrored either side of a large cat face with yellow eyes and kohl-style eyeliner. The wings and cats are shaded in black and grey with fine feather detail, while the yellow eyes provide the only strong colour. The design is centred and symmetrical, filling a broad area of pale skin.

Back Cat Cat face Wing Eye Feather

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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

The lorry comes through the far barrier at ten past two, its tailgate sealed with wire and a paper strip that someone has already cracked and taped back. You are the one who signs for it. The manifest says garden statuary, two items, cast resin, and you have signed for worse. The driver won't look at you, but he mutters that the crate is warm, and it is.

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You cut the wire with the bolt cutters kept under the desk for exactly this. Inside, on straw gone grey with age, sit two black cats, upright, tails curled around their feet. Their wings are folded but not still. The feathers are fine as ink and layered like scales. Between them leans a painted board the size of a tea tray, and on it a great cat's face watches you, its eyes lined in kohl and burning the yellow of a lamp left on in a window. The paperwork says resin. Your thumb, pressed to the nearest wing, comes away cool and dry.

You consider the form, the box marked clear or hold, and the three officers who will be in the canteen until six. You tick clear. It is the only mercy this job allows. When you look up, both cats have turned a quarter towards the open door, and the driver has already gone back to his cab, leaving his keys on the step.

By the time the shift changes the crate is empty and the straw has been swept into a neat heap by the bins. You find the board face up on the tarmac beside the barrier, the yellow eyes catching the sodium light. Pressed into the corner of the paper beneath it is your own unused stamp, with a small smear of gold where the ink should be. You keep it. Somewhere past the river, a pair of wings goes up and does not come down.