Black and grey dotwork tattoo of a winged sugar skull with a bird head on the centre of the chest, below a grey top.

Winged sugar skull across the chest

Dotwork · Chest · Black and grey · Photo

A black and grey tattoo shows a sugar skull with outstretched feathered wings and a bird head at the top. The skull and wings are filled with dense dotwork stippling and mandala-like floral patterns. The tattoo sits centrally on the torso, with a navel piercing visible below and a grey top covering the upper body.

Dotwork Geometric Chest Sugar skull Wing Bird Mandala Floral

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tomas, the old Bramley by the gate has split down the middle, so Hal and I have propped it with two oak props and a length of rope Dad would have called a disgrace. The fruit is coming in fat and early this year, and the wasps have found every bruise on every windfall. I am writing because I cannot say this on the phone without my voice going thin.

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The orchard is quiet in the afternoons now. We pick in the mornings while the dew is still on the grass, and by two o'clock the crates are stacked under the damson trees like a row of small houses. Mum's ledger is still in the drawer of the kitchen dresser, every picking and every name in her careful hand, the pickers who came back year after year. I found it last night beneath the tea towels and sat with it until the lamp burned low.

The swan on the mill pond came up to the wall again this evening, lifting her wings the way she does when she wants the children to throw bread. I used to think she was showing off. Now I think she is only telling the water that she is still here, and that the water had better remember it.

I have nailed the lid of the old apple crate to the barn wall, the one Mum painted with the grinning skull and the paper marigolds, and I have left it propped open so you can see the colours. Come home before the frost and bring the good knife. Your sister, Nell.