Black and grey fine line arrow with overlapping circles and dotted lines on the side of the torso.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Arrow with overlapping circles on the side

Fine line · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

A fine line arrow with feathered fletching sits upright at the centre of the image, with a thin dotted line running beside it. Several overlapping circles of varying sizes frame the arrow, and the shading is minimal, relying on crisp black linework. The ink is black on pale skin, and the tattoo is placed slightly off centre with plenty of clear skin around it.

Fine line Geometric Ribs Arrow Feather Circle Dotted line

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Brother Anselm has already rung the bell for Prime when you reach the cloister, so the arrow you were meant to fletch is still lying across the bench with its feathers unglued. The abbot wants it finished before the Feast of Saint Brendan, when the new sundial goes up over the east door. You have been told it is a plain thing: a shaft, a point, three goose feathers. You have never trusted plain things that are asked to do a job.

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The dial is Brother Anselm's work, a bronze ring cut with eleven circles, each one a path the sun takes through the year. He drew them by candle on the chapter-house floor, and when the chalk ran short he pinned a length of dyed thread at the centre and swung it round. The arrow is meant to sit on the meridian and throw its shadow across the rings, so that a man reading the hours can see exactly where the day has got to. You think of it as a pointer. Anselm calls it a sighting, because the shadow must be aimed as well as cast.

Late in the afternoon you sit with the shaft across your knees and the fine dotted line you pricked onto the parchment beside it. The sun is low, and the shadow lies across the second circle, the one that marks the shortest day. You understand that you have been using the wrong ring all month. You take up the knife, scrape the feathers loose, and begin again, counting the grooves aloud the way Anselm taught you, until the shadow falls exactly where it belongs.