Black ink drawing of a compass rose tattoo design with N, E, S and W points, a dotwork mandala centre and fine line petals, shown as a stencil-style sketch with no body placement visible.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Compass rose design with mandala centre

Geometric · Black and grey · Flash

A black ink drawing of a compass rose with N, E, S and W marked at the points and a fine line outline of layered petal shapes behind it. The central circle contains a dotwork mandala with a star at its heart, and the rays are shaded with stippled dots and solid black. The design is centred on a plain cream background.

Geometric Dotwork Compass Compass rose Mandala Star Petal

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Ada, the lost property cupboard at Harrowgate has finally given up the brass compass Mr Pryce swore he'd left on the 4.10 in March. It was not in the cupboard. It was in the drawer under the ticket window, wrapped in a Sunday supplement, where Walter had put it himself after the porter said it was a nuisance and not a treasure. I have decided it is neither, and have pinned it above the kettle.

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The needle is dead, so the points are a matter of faith. North is the one with the chipped rim. Ever since the new timetable came, the trains run to whichever direction the platform board says, and nobody asks the compass anything. I find I like it that way. The rays are inked in dots so fine you must hold the case to the lamp to see them, and the little star at the middle is the only thing in the whole station that stays exactly where it was put.

Last Thursday a girl came asking for her grandmother's train, which had gone in 1961. I did not have the heart to tell her. I gave her the compass to hold and told her to stand facing the buffers. She laughed, then pointed the wrong way, and then she did not seem to mind. Yours, Edwin.