Pen sketch on lined paper of a compass with Roman numerals, scrollwork and the words follow your own path, drawn as a tattoo design.

Compass with Roman numerals and "follow your own path"

Black and grey · Flash

A black pen sketch of a compass rose inside a ringed dial with Roman numerals and the compass points N, W, S and SW. Ornate scrolls and a dotted, mandala-like motif surround the dial, and the handwritten words "follow your own path" sit to the right. The linework is even and dark on cream lined paper, with no shading or colour.

Compass Roman numeral Scrollwork Handwritten text

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The lift at Ashgrove House had been dead since March, so I took the stairs with the recycling bags and counted the landings out loud, the way Nan counted stitches when her hands were bad. Fourteen floors. By the ninth my calves had stopped arguing and started sulking, and the concrete stairwell smelled of damp and somebody's chip supper.

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The compass was Uncle Ray's. It was a dented brass thing with a cracked glass lid, and he left it on our sideboard the week he went down to Leeds for work and never sent for it. The dial had Roman numerals round the rim, the twelve up top, and the needle wouldn't settle when I held it near the radiator. It just kept swinging back to north like it had been told to.

On the bench by the bins I copied it into my maths book, the rim, the numerals and the star of points with N and W and S and SW, pressing hard so the lines came out black. Nan came out with a cup of tea and looked over my shoulder. "It only tells you where north is, love," she said. "Not where you're meant to go." I asked what else it was for, and she tapped the bottom of the page where I'd left a gap and told me to write something there.

So I did, in my best joined-up writing: follow your own path. Then I tore the page out, folded it into my pocket, and walked past the car park towards the bus stop, facing the way the sun comes up over the retail park, because it was the one direction nobody had given me a reason to avoid.