Black and grey realism tattoo of a winged figure crouched on a rock, shown on the upper arm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Winged figure on a rock on an upper arm

Realism · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A crouched, bare-bodied humanoid figure with long flowing hair and dark wings sits on a textured rock, with wispy tendrils rising above. The piece uses smooth grey shading and high contrast in the wings and hair, with fine detail in the rock surface. It is shown in black and grey ink against pale skin, with the figure filling most of the upper arm.

Realism Upper arm Winged figure Rock Wing Smoke

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

By three in the morning the ward on the fourth floor has stopped pretending to be a place where people sleep, and you have learned to walk its corridor the way you would cross a frozen pond, testing each step. Mrs Okafor in bed nine has been asking for the window to be opened since midnight, though the window is sealed and the November air outside is hard as slate. You tell her the night sister is coming. You tell yourself that too.

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The thing on the roof of the multistorey car park across the road has been there for a month. You first noticed it from the bus stop, a crouched shape on the flat grey rock of the parapet, its wings folded so tightly they looked like a coat thrown over something it did not want found. Tonight it has turned towards the wards. Its hair lifts in the wind like smoke off a snuffed wick, and the wisps curling above it seem to be counting the lit windows one by one.

You go to the window at the end of the corridor, the one the patients believe is locked. The catch gives with a sound like a bone settling. Cold comes in, carrying the smell of wet stone and rain. Across the road the figure lifts its head. It does not look at you. It looks at bed nine, then at the drip stand beside it, and its wings open a little, then fold again, as if it has decided something and is not certain it is allowed to.

You close the window and lock it. Mrs Okafor is asleep, her breathing even for the first time since midnight. You sit with the chart on your knee and wait for the sister, and when you look up again the parapet is empty except for a single long dark hair caught on the stone, moving in air that is perfectly still.