Black geometric four-armed motif with stepped edges and soft grainy shading on the inner forearm, resembling a swastika.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Angular geometric motif on forearm

Geometric · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A close photograph of a solid black, angular four-armed motif tattooed on the inner forearm, rotated so its arms point up, right, down and left. The arms have stepped, right-angled edges, and their fill has a soft, grainy gradient toward the outer ends. The background is out of focus, and the skin is evenly lit against a plain, muted setting.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tomas,

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The man who bought the petrol station at the bend past Mercy Wells had the old sign repainted on Tuesday. You will not believe what was under the new coat of white. Someone had stencilled that hooked cross on the breeze block behind the pumps, four arms turned like a windmill, and the edges were so sharp they looked cut with a razor. I stood in the heat with my bucket and could not make my hands do anything for a full minute.

Mum never said what it was. She only ever said that Grandad kept his papers in a biscuit tin and would not let anyone open it, and that the same mark on the cellar door at the farm was something you walked past without looking. I thought she was being dramatic. I am sixty-three now, and I know she was not.

So I did what she would have done. I took the turpentine from the shed and a rag, and I worked at it for three hours until my arms ached and my knuckles had bled a little into the grit. The black came up in grey smears, and underneath, the breeze block was pale and pitted and ordinary, which somehow made it worse. Nobody had lived behind that wall for a long time.

The new owner came out at dusk, looked at the wall, and said nothing for a while. Then he fetched a second tin of paint from his van and set it down beside my bucket with the lid still on. I have decided to take that as a kindness.

Love, Annelie

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