Black ink dotwork drawing of a horned bull skull with a lotus mandala on the forehead and dotted chains hanging from the horns, drawn on white paper.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Bull skull with lotus mandala design

Dotwork · Black and grey · Flash

A bull skull with long curved horns is drawn in black ink on white paper, with a lotus mandala filling the space between the horns. Fine stippled dots and short hatched lines shade the bone, and dotted chains drape from both horns. The composition is centred and symmetrical, with the skull filling most of the frame against a dark wooden surface.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Iris Calloway counted the bunting for the third time before the rain came, and for the third time it came up one short. The Dunmore Circus had been shrinking all season, a pole here, a sawdust bag there, and now the big top sagged over a field outside Doncaster like a tired hat. Above the entrance hung the bull skull that had belonged to Old Pasha, who had hauled the ring wagon from Carlisle to Penzance for nineteen years before his heart gave out in March. Somebody had strung dotted chains from his horns for the opening night, brass beads threaded on wire, and Iris had never once been able to look at them straight.

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Teddy Vane found her under the skull at dusk, ledger tucked under one arm. "Dealer from Leeds will take the skull and the wagon both," he said, not unkindly. "Pays the wages through October."

"Pasha doesn't go to Leeds."

"Pasha's bone, Iris. Bone doesn't mind."

She climbed the stepladder anyway. The lotus painted on the board beneath the horns had flaked to grey, but the petals were still there, layer on layer, the way Pasha's keeper had taught her to draw them in the caravan the winter she was twelve. She unhooked the chain from the left horn and felt its weight settle into her palm, cold and lighter than she expected.

Teddy was still watching when she stepped down. "What are you doing?"

"Stringing the last sequins," she said, and went to find the spare wire.

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