Fine line constellation tattoo with a blue and purple watercolour wash on the thigh.

Constellation with watercolour wash on thigh

Fine line · Thigh · Mixed · Photo

A constellation of black dots of varying sizes is joined by dashed lines on the upper thigh. Behind the linework, a soft blue and purple watercolour wash fades out at the edges, with a few small splatter marks. The close crop shows grey fabric at the top edge, and the background is softly blurred.

Fine line Thigh Constellation Star Watercolour Dotted line

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Third night running the ward clock has stuck at ten past three, so I've stopped looking at it and started looking out of the window instead. Bed Six's daughter has gone home to sleep, leaving a paper cup of tea going cold on the sill, and I've been counting stars over the car park because Mr Adeyemi asked me to tell him when the Plough tipped over. He can't see them from his bed. He says the sky over Lagos was better, and he's probably right, but I told him ours is fine if you know where to look.

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I found Orion first, then Cassiopeia, which looks like a wonky W someone drew in a hurry. The rest is smudge. Still, I drew the lines for him on the back of a blood-pressure chart, dots where the bright ones sit, and he wanted them joined up in blue biro, so I did it, badly, and he laughed at my handwriting. I've pinned it above his locker. He says the blue wash bleeding out past the edges looks like a sky that couldn't keep to the lines. I told him that was the best description I'd heard all month.

At four the pager went and I had to run to Bay C, where a man had pulled out his drip thinking it was a loose thread. Nothing dramatic in the end. By the time I got back the window had gone grey at the edges and Mr Adeyemi was asleep with the chart on his chest, one finger resting on the dot he said was his grandmother's house.

I stood there longer than I should have, looking at those lines against the dawn, and thought that every constellation is just someone deciding which dots belong together. I'm going to tell him that tomorrow. Then I'll finish my tea, which is stone cold, and go and check on him again.