Black and grey realism wolf head with oak leaves, acorns and moon phases across an upper arm sleeve, with a dotwork mandala at the shoulder.

Wolf and oak sleeve on upper arm

Realism · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A realistic wolf head fills the centre of an arm sleeve, with shaded oak leaves and acorns below it. Above, a row of moon phases and a dotwork mandala with stippled edges sit across the shoulder. The work is in black and grey, with soft shading on the fur and smooth gradients on the leaves.

Realism Dotwork Botanical Upper arm Shoulder Wolf Acorn Moon phase Mandala Sleeve

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The last train was never on time at Clennock Halt, so I kept the kettle warm in the signal box and listened for the points to chatter. That October the acorns came down on the tin roof like hail, and the oaks along the cutting shed their leaves in brown fists onto the sleepers. Nobody else worked nights out there. Dad had done it for thirty-one years before his knees gave out, and he left me his lamp, his logbook and one rule he never wrote down: don't open the gate when the moon is half full and the wind is coming off the wood.

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I broke it on a Tuesday. The moon was a clean half above the goods yard, and a grey shape stood on the far platform reading the timetable board as if it had an appointment. It didn't look at me. It looked at the rails, then at my lamp, then back at the black line of oaks beyond the fence. When I lifted the latch it walked past me without touching the gate, and I understood I was the one who had been invited.

It went down the cess to the points and sat there, tail wrapped round its feet, while the 22:14 came grinding round the bend. I swung the lever and watched the driver's face through the glass, pale and puzzled, the carriage lights sliding over the wolf's coat like water. The train slowed for nothing I had asked it to do. When the last carriage cleared, the wolf rose, nosed a single acorn off the step of the signal box, and laid it on the rail where the lamp had been.

Dad's logbook had a column for incidents. I wrote nothing in it that night. By morning the acorn was gone and the oak leaves had been swept from the sleepers, all except one, pressed flat and gold on the rail as neat as a ticket. I kept the kettle warm the next night too.