Black and grey realism tattoo of a hooded winged angel holding a skull, spread across the full back.

Winged hooded figure holding a skull on back

Realism · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A large tattoo covers the whole back, showing a hooded winged figure with a pale, gaunt face standing centrally and cradling a skull in its hands. The feathered wings extend outward to both sides, and a long, tattered robe falls to the bottom of the frame with smoke-like clouds behind. The work uses fine linework and soft grey shading with no colour, and the composition is centred and symmetrical.

Realism Back Angel Wing Skull Hood Robe Cloud Figure

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom,

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Forgive the smudged ink. The fog came in on Tuesday and has not lifted since, and I have spent more nights up the tower than in my own bed. Mr Pascoe swears the lamp is burning brighter than the oil ought to allow, which is nonsense, but I have stopped arguing with him.

On Thursday, just before the second bell, I saw her standing on the landing stage below the gallery. A tall grey shape, hood up, the wings folded down like wet sailcloth. She held something pale in both hands, the way you would carry a christening bowl. I took it for a lantern at first. It was a skull, Tom, a man's skull with the jaw gone, and she was looking up at the light as if taking its measure.

I did not go down. Pascoe did, with the boathook, and came back up grey himself. He says she never turned around. When he reached the stage there was only the skull on the weed-covered step, facing seaward, and a smell of wet hemp and old candle wax. We have buried nobody from this rock since the Carrow boy in '98, and his bones went ashore at Porthgwin.

So this morning I carried the skull up to the gallery and set it in the window beside the lens, turned out toward the rocks where the ships come in. The fog thinned by noon. I do not know if that was the lamp, the skull or the weather, and I have decided it does not matter which. Come at Michaelmas if the boat runs. Bring the good tea.

Your loving sister, Hannah