Realistic colour tattoo of a brass compass and coiled rope over a black-lined world map on an upper arm and shoulder.

Compass and rope on upper arm

Realism · Upper arm · Mixed · Photo

A brass compass with a glass face sits in the centre of the design, with a thick coiled rope wrapping above and behind it. Fine black outlines of a world map with orange and brown shading fill the skin below and around the compass. The rope and compass are shaded with smooth gradients and highlights, giving them a three-dimensional look, while the map is drawn as a flatter outline.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell,

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The compass Tomasz gave me stopped working in March, the needle swinging round like a drunk looking for the pub. I have not thrown it in the Thames. I keep it on the hatch by the tiller where the sun hits the glass, because you said once that a thing that points somewhere is never really lost, only waiting for you to decide which way is north. I have decided it is Gravesend. Do not argue.

The rope is the mooring line from the Marjorie, the one that snapped under the Blackfriars arches the night the lamps went out. Mr Okafor tied it off again with a bowline and swore at it the whole time, and I thought of you. You would have laughed at the knot and then done it better.

The map is what I cannot explain. I drew the outlines on the back of the cabin ledger with the stub of your blue pencil, going from memory, the coast of Lisbon and the long bite of the Bay of Biscay, and then I just kept going. The ink is still soft on the paper and I am scared to touch it. Somewhere past the edge of the page there is a harbour I have never seen, and I am nearly sure you are waiting in it.

Write back, or come up the towpath on Sunday. Either will do. I will be the one with the rope round her shoulder and the wrong compass in her hand.

Yours, always on the water, Bea

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