Black and grey traditional style tattoo of a winged caduceus with clouds and a heartbeat line, on the ankle and lower leg.

Caduceus with wings and heartbeat line on ankle

Traditional · Ankle · Black and grey · Photo

A winged caduceus with two snakes coiled around a staff sits in front of a cloud and rays of light, with a heartbeat trace running beneath it. The design uses bold outlines with grey shading on the wings, snakes and clouds. It is shown in black and grey against a pale blue surface, filling most of the frame.

Traditional Ankle Wing Snake Cloud Heartbeat

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The snakes have got into the storeroom again, and you are the one who has to coax them out before the priest wakes. Lamplight falls across jars of wild thyme and clay pots of honey. Old Damon says the god sends the snakes to see whether you will flinch, and you have not yet decided whether he is joking.

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Out past the colonnade the sea is grey as pewter, and the cloud above the harbour is lit from behind, rays spilling down like a lantern held up in a doorway. The pilgrims who have slept three nights in the sanctuary tell you they dreamt of the winged rod. You lift the nearest snake with two fingers, wind it once around the wooden staff, and it settles, cool and heavy as wet rope. The god's messenger has always had two coils to carry. You are only the bowl-bearer.

A girl is carried in from the harbour, fever-hot, her mother's hand white on the doorframe. You press two fingers to the child's wrist and count against the water clock. The beat runs fast, then slow, then stumbles and steadies. Mark it, Damon says, and you scratch a jagged line into the wax tablet, up and down, up and down, the same rhythm the snakes make when they climb the rod.

By dawn the fever has broken and the mother is weeping into her shawl. Damon takes the tablet, studies the zigzags, and grunts. Keep the record, he says. The god will want to see who was listening. You tuck the tablet under your arm and go to find the snakes, which have, of course, crawled back into the storeroom to sleep off their night.