Anatomical heart on an arm
Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo
The tattoo shows an anatomical human heart with its major vessels rising from the top, including the aorta and pulmonary arteries. The heart is rendered in black and grey with dense hatched and stippled linework that builds shadow and form, in the manner of a vintage engraving. It fills most of the frame against a blurred indoor background, with a few people and equipment out of focus.
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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction
You had the anatomy plates pinned above the cloakroom hatch at the Palais, because Mr Harrow said the bench in the cellar was too damp for boxwood. Every Saturday the floor shook under the quickstep and your hatching jumped with it, so you learned to cut in time with the band: a fine stroke for the saxophone, a dotted stipple where the trombone dropped out.
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Doctor Ellery came up from the Infirmary with a specimen wrapped in muslin and asked for the great vessels to rise from the top of the block like the chimneys of a good house. You drew the aorta first, then the pulmonary trunk, then the chambers, shading the underside where the light from the mirror ball would never reach. He stood at your shoulder, smelling of carbolic, and told you that the heart was the only organ that never once rested.
On the last night of the season he asked you to dance, and you said your hands were for cutting, which was true and also a coward's answer. He went back to his ward. The block went to the printer on Monday and came back as proofs, each one darkest where you had pressed hardest.
Now the band plays on through the floor of your workroom, and you cut the chambers a little looser than before, leaving the rhythm in the lines where anyone who looks closely can count it.
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