Black ink tattoo down the upper back with an infinity symbol near the neck, circle motifs and a vertical line of marks, beside four film stills linked by coloured arrows.

Black linework tattoo down the upper back

Back · Mixed · Photo

A bare upper back shows black ink linework running down the spine, including an infinity symbol near the neck, arc and circle motifs, and a vertical column of small script-like marks. The right side of the image is a collage of four cinematic stills of space and landscape scenes, each linked to a part of the tattoo by a coloured arrow. The tattoo is black and grey, and the composition is a close crop of the back with the collage placed alongside.

Back Infinity Circle Arc Script Line Spine Space Planet Tower Landscape

Find an artist for this

Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

You are the only one on Skerry Mhor who still climbs the iron stair of the tower every night, because the ferry stopped in October and the mainland forgot your name. The tower was built to warn ships off the rocks, but nobody has steered by it since the gulls took over the lamp room. Tonight there is a ring in the sky above the sound, a faint silver circle hanging over the water like a hoop of frost.

Keep reading

Your father's logbook lies open on the sill. He wrote in it the winter the first arc of light crossed the Minch, and he copied the strange marks down in a column because he said the stars were speaking a language with no vowels. You trace the marks into the margin with a carpenter's pencil, as you have always done, and the wind lifts the page and rattles it against the glass.

A spark drops out of the ring and stretches into a long shape with a white tail. It doesn't fall the way a meteor falls. It turns, levels, and runs along the dark like a needle through cloth. You watch it pass over the headland to the far side of the island, where the tower's shadow would have reached if there were any moon, and the hairs on your arms lift.

By dawn the craft has settled somewhere beyond the heather, and a single small light has climbed out of it and is walking toward the tower. You take the lamp down, trim the wick, and carry it back to the sill. Whatever is coming up the path has been reading the same column of marks for a long time. You hang the lamp where the ships used to see it, and wait to see who answers.