Black line-art chemical structure tattoo with fused rings on the inner wrist and forearm, in a fine line style.

Chemical structure tattoo on a wrist

Fine line · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A black line tattoo of a chemical structure made from fused hexagonal and five-sided rings with short bonds and branches sits on the inner wrist. The linework is even and single weight, with no shading, and the lines are slightly bolder on the outer edges of the rings. The image is a close, straight-on photo against a white tiled background, with the tattoo centred and the top of a clenched hand visible.

Fine line Forearm Molecule Chemical structure Line art Ring

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom,

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The lift's been out since Tuesday, so I walked all fourteen floors with the shopping and found Mrs Okafor's boy sitting on the landing with your old chemistry set, the one with the cracked test tubes. He had a biro copy of a molecule on the back of a takeaway menu and wanted to know what it was called. I didn't know. I told him to ask his teacher, then gave him a packet of custard creams because it seemed the only useful thing I had to offer.

I've been thinking about it since. Dad always said your sums were the only thing you ever did properly, and when you sketched that shape on the calendar at Christmas, two six-sided rings fused at the shoulder with a little five-sided one hanging off the end like a dropped sleeve, I pretended I could follow it. I still can't tell one ring from another. But I've kept the calendar on the fridge, and every morning I trace the lines with my thumb while the kettle goes, the way you used to trace the bus routes on the tube map.

Last week the council man came about the damp. He stood in front of the calendar for a full minute and said, "That's a proper bit of work, that is," and I said yes, my son drew it, and he nodded as if he understood. Maybe he did. The lift is fixed now, and I rode it down just to feel it move, and I thought of you on the train north, counting the stops between here and Leeds.

Love, Mum