Black and grey flash design of a wolf head inside an inverted triangle, with three moon phases above the eyes.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Wolf head in inverted triangle

Geometric · Black and grey · Flash

A wolf's head faces forward inside a large inverted triangle, with ears rising above the top edge. Fine hatching and stippled dots model the fur, while the triangle is filled with solid black and horizontal lines. Three crescent and circle moon phases sit on the forehead, and dashed rays extend outward from the eyes and sides of the head.

Geometric Dotwork Wolf Triangle Moon phase Dashed line Animal head

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The third night running it has sat at the bottom of the service ramp, exactly where the sodium light from the loading bay gives out. Grey, big as a sofa, ears up as if it is listening for the ward call bell. I told Dev it was a stray from the allotments behind Hollins Road. Dev said strays don't wait for you to finish your tea.

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Nights on Ward 6 keep their own rhythm. Obs at two, bloods at four, and the moon going through its shapes behind the blinds. Last Tuesday it was a sliver, then a half, then the fat white circle that made old Mrs Pryce ask whether someone had turned the lights up. I told her it was only the moon. She said that was what the moon always says.

On Friday I took a torch down the ramp with a flask lid of cold tea. The wolf didn't run. Its eyes caught the beam and held it, and the faint dashed lines I had half seen on the tarmac, like chalk marks left by the sports field, seemed to run from its face out past the bins. I followed them to the gate. Then they stopped, and so did the animal, and I felt the particular quiet of a ward at half three when every monitor agrees.

I'm writing this on the back of a drug chart because I don't trust my phone at this hour. The bloods are done. Mrs Pryce is asleep. Tonight I've left the flask on the step and the gate unlatched. Whatever is out there knows the way in, and I'd rather it came to the door than wandered the car park for another week.