Shaded grey Buddha head with pink lotus flowers and cherry blossom on an upper arm and shoulder tattoo.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Buddha, lotus and cherry blossom on upper arm

Realism · Upper arm · Mixed · Photo

A large Buddha head with closed eyes and a dot on the brow fills the centre of the upper arm, shaded in soft greys with fine detail in the hair curls. Pink and peach lotus flowers sit beside the face, and cherry blossom branches extend over the shoulder on a dark background. The lower part of the arm carries a fine black lace-like pattern beneath the lotus, and the piece is framed against a plain pale wall.

Realism Neo-trad Botanical Upper arm Shoulder Buddha Lotus Cherry blossom Flower Lace pattern Portrait Branches

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The porter at St Brannoc's had a rule about the linen room after midnight: you knocked before you went in, even when you knew it was empty. Nobody remembered who started it. Dessie Corran, who had worked the nights for thirty years, said it was because of the head on the top shelf, above the folded sheets.

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The head had come in a crate from a supplier in Bristol, a plaster copy of a seated teacher, the kind a grateful family sends to a hospital chapel. Its eyes were shut and it had a small dot on its brow. Pots of lotus stood along the corridor by the lift, and when the ward went quiet you could hear the water drip from their leaves. Agency nurses said the head smiled more on bad nights. Dessie said smiling was only what a face did once it had stopped needing anything from you.

Maren came on in February, quick and sure of herself, and she laughed at the knocking. One night a boy in bay four was shivering under a single blanket, and she went to the linen room for another. She knocked out of politeness, the way you knock on a stranger's door. A voice said, plainly, Come in, it's cold. She stood with her hand on the frame for the length of one breath. The radiator under the window was ticking, and the room was warm enough to make her sleeves damp. She took two blankets, shut the door softly, and said nothing to anyone.

After that she knocked every time, and so did the others. Dessie taught the new ones the same way his mother had taught him, to wait the length of a breath and then go in gently, because a quiet room holds something, and it has a right to be asked.