Black and grey realism tattoo of a pocket compass and a rose with faint map lines on an upper arm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Compass and rose on an upper arm

Realism · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A pocket compass with its lid open sits in the centre, with a rose bloom and petals on the left and faint map lines behind. The compass face, needle and engraved scale are shaded with fine detail and strong contrast, and the rose is softly blended. The piece is entirely in black and grey ink, and the design fills the upper arm with a close, angled view.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Dad,

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The lift is broken again, so I've been carrying the shopping up eleven floors and thinking about your old pocket compass. Mum says you left it in the drawer with the takeaway menus, but I took it out last week and held it up by the window. The needle swung, shivered, then settled on something over the car park roofs that I'm fairly sure wasn't north.

Mrs Okafor on the ninth says the council are finally repainting the stairwell, the pale green they promised in March. She asked after you. I told her you were somewhere past Cape Wrath, which is what you wrote on the postcard, though I looked it up and the postmark said Lerwick. I don't mind. Maps lie in small ways when you want them to.

I've been drawing on the back of the gas bill, lines from the bin store to the bus stop to the old cinema, with a rose in the middle where the roads cross. Nobody else on this estate would understand it, which I suppose is why I'm writing to you. The rose is the bit I can't get right. Every time I rub it out the paper goes thin.

When you're back, remind me how you take a bearing without looking at the dial. I want to walk to the coast this summer, and I'd rather not get lost on the way.

Love, Jess

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