Black and grey traditional tattoo of a compass in an ornate frame with two roses, sitting on the upper arm of a person wearing a white T-shirt.

Compass and roses on an upper arm

Traditional · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A black and grey tattoo of a compass set within an ornate scrolled frame, with a large rose and a smaller rose beside it. The compass has a shaded face and a radiating star pattern, while the roses use bold outlines and soft grey shading. The photo is taken close up at a slight angle, with the upper arm filling the frame and a blurred background.

Traditional Upper arm Compass Rose Pocket watch Frame

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The wall clock in Bay Four had stopped at ten to three, so I went by the compass in my head instead, the one my gran used to tap on the dashboard whenever we got lost on the coast road. Nobody on nights trusts the clock anyway. Mr Okafor's monitor chirped behind the curtain like a cricket that had lost its way, and I counted the drip bags twice before I let myself sit down.

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Mrs Harkness had been awake since midnight, insisting the ward faced the wrong way. "The sea's on the left," she said. "Hull's up there, love, and the sun comes from the other end." I told her the windows looked onto the car park, which was true and no comfort to her at all. She lifted one hand off the blanket and drew a small star in the air, eight points, the way a sailor's wife might draw one on a steamed window.

I found her a biro and the back of a prescription pad. She drew the rose first, petals in tight swirls, then a circle, then a needle with its point sharpened like a pencil. "North's always the long point," she said, tapping it. "Everything else is just bunting." By half three she had me turn the bed to the window, and she settled with the paper folded under her pillow like a letter she meant to post in the morning.

At six the sky over the car park went the colour of weak tea. I handed over to the day staff, and on my desk I found the pad left behind, the compass redrawn in careful capitals beneath it: THANK YOU FOR FINDING NORTH. I folded it into my pocket and walked home the long way, by the sea, with the needle still pointing where she had told me it should.