Realism tattoo on the shoulder and upper arm showing a silver zipper opening the skin to reveal red muscle fibres beneath.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Zipper opening to muscle on a shoulder

Realism · Shoulder · Colour · Photo

A zipper with a metal pull is drawn as if it has split the skin across the shoulder, revealing a red muscle beneath with fine fibre striations. The rendering uses soft shading, highlights and a dark edge along the zipper teeth to give a three-dimensional effect. Colour dominates the composition, with the red muscle contrasting against the natural skin tones of the shoulder.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tomas,

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The pass shut on Tuesday and it has not opened since, so the Lantern Inn has nine guests, a goat in the cellar and a tailor from Brno who will not stop talking about zips. He arrived with a case of brass teeth and tape, saying his coats were the finest in the valley, and when the stove sulked on Wednesday he showed me how a zip ought to sit: flat, quiet, the teeth meeting like the knuckles of a closed hand.

Yesterday he unpicked the lining of my father's old sheepskin to show me the workings. The padding inside was red wool, dyed the colour of a good joint, and he said that was the whole trick. Make the lining look like what a coat is hiding and people will believe the zip. He had pinned a sample to the table, a shoulder cut from grey felt with a pull as big as my thumb, and he was so pleased with it that his tea went cold.

This morning the cook's boy, who is eleven and not allowed near the knives, unzipped his anorak at breakfast to show us the lining, and it was only a jumper underneath. The tailor laughed too hard and then went quiet. He said the trick works best when nobody checks.

I am writing this by the stove with the goat complaining below. Come home when the road is clear, and bring the good scissors.

Ilse

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