Black and grey realism tattoo of a rose set within a coin-style medallion with banner text, across the back of a hand.

Black and grey rose in coin on hand

Realism · Hand · Black and grey · Photo

A rose sits at the centre of a coin-style medallion, with a ribbon-like banner curling around its edge. The rose petals and medallion rim are rendered with heavy shading, strong highlights and a raised, three-dimensional look. The tattoo is entirely in black and grey ink against a plain, lightly blurred background.

Realism Hand Rose Coin Banner Text

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The rain had been coming down on the Cheshire Street pitches since six, and by ten the rose stall had nothing left to sell but the old brass token Dad kept in his apron pocket. He called it the rose coin. One side carried a flower gone soft at the petals, the other a band of letters worn nearly smooth. I turned it over in my fingers while Mrs Okafor pretended not to watch from the next trestle.

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"One run," Dad used to say every time he flipped it to decide who opened up in the mornings. One run before the weather sets in, one run for the last of the stock. The words round the rim were his father's joke, a Hackney barrow man's way of making a wet Tuesday feel like a bet. I never knew whether the coin was lucky or whether he had simply never lost a toss with it.

Mrs Okafor had three bunches of carnations left and a van she could not afford to keep idling outside. I offered her the coin for them. She laughed and said she would only take it if I took her stock off her hands as well. So we flipped, and it came down rose side up in a puddle on the trestle, and I had to decide whether to keep the stall or give it away.

I gave her the roses and kept the coin. I packed the empty buckets myself and walked the length of the market in the rain, past the shuttered tea hut and the dripping canopies, the coin warm in my palm the whole way to the station.