Black and grey shaded abstract symbol tattoo with curved forms, sitting on the upper chest near the collarbone beside a black bra strap.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Abstract black and grey symbol on upper chest

Chest · Black and grey · Photo

A small tattoo of two curved, abstract shapes sits on the upper chest near the collarbone. The forms are filled with soft grey shading that fades toward the edges, giving them a slightly three-dimensional look. The photo is a close, slightly angled shot in warm indoor light, with a black bra strap visible on the left and the shoulder and neck at the top edge of the frame.

Chest Swirl

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Sit down, sit down, the band's still arguing about the fiddle, so you've time for this one. See the dip in the floorboards by the north pillar? Everyone takes it for rot. It isn't. It's where Idris Vane stood every Saturday for thirty-one years, turning on the one spot like a man trying to remember a word.

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Idris couldn't dance. Two left feet, my mother used to say, and a third that belonged to somebody else. But in the spring of 1951 Nell Harrow came through the door in a green coat, a girl who ran the mangle at the laundry and had no time for fools, and she walked straight past every lad in the room to the far end where he was propping up the lemonade. She held out her hand and said, 'You've a tune in you somewhere, or you wouldn't be standing this close to the band.'

They went round in a slow, lopsided loop that the whole hall laughed at. He led her in a wide curve, she tucked herself under his arm and spun out of it, then came back in tight, always returning to him the way a stroke of ink curls back on itself before it lifts from the page. Nobody watching could say who was leading. Nell said it was the tune. Idris said it was the floor, which had been waiting for them.

They married that autumn, and every Saturday after, the two of them went round the north pillar and never once missed the spot. When Nell's heart gave out in the winter of '82, Idris came to the hall alone, stood on the dip, and turned the old circle slowly until the band packed up. Go on, then, the next waltz is starting, and whoever leads, don't let go of the curl.