Black compass rose tattoo with a dotted ring and script reading "The horizon is my home" on the upper back.

Compass rose with "The horizon is my home" on upper back

Dotwork · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A compass rose sits within a dotted circle, with a fleur-de-lis marking north and the letters W and E at the west and east points. The script "The horizon is my home" curves around the left and lower right of the compass, and the rose is shaded with solid black points and grey detail. The ink is black and grey, centred on a plain, lightly lit area of skin across the upper back.

Dotwork Lettering Back Compass Compass rose Fleur-de-lis Script Quote Horizon

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom, the Gallagher wagon is finally gone from the back field, so Dunmore Fair has nowhere left to pitch but our own patch of rubbish grass. Mum made me go through your tin in the rigger's van. Under the spare guy ropes was the brass compass you won at the shooting gallery in Carlisle, the one with the fleur-de-lis scratched on its lid. The needle sticks at north-west now. I tried tapping it with a spanner the way you used to, and it only spun more.

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I took it to Eddie Marr on the cake stall, who has mended every clock and accordion between here and Hull. He held it up to the bulb and said the needle isn't broken, it's just that nobody has carried it far enough to settle. He charged me two toffee apples for that. I thought of you walking the Dartford road with it in your pocket, asking every farmer which way was east.

Yesterday the wind turned and the big top came down in pieces. I stood in the field with the compass open on my palm and waited. It swung slowly, then steadied on the rose you always drew on the back of your letters, the W and the E on either side of the points. Your letters always ended with the same line, that the horizon was your home. I used to think that was just something a sailor says when he's homesick.

So I've folded this into the tin with the compass, and I'm going to stop trying to fix it. Come back when it settles. The fair leaves for Lincoln on Thursday, and I'll be the one facing the road.