Close-up of a fine line black tattoo of two lines of latitude and longitude coordinates on the side of the torso, above floral shorts.

Coordinates tattoo on the side of the torso

Fine line · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

Two lines of small black serif numerals and degree, minute and second symbols sit diagonally across the skin at the side of the torso. The linework is thin and crisp, with solid black ink and no shading. The soft, light skin and pale bedding behind it are shown in a casual, close-up crop with the tattoo off centre.

Fine line Ribs Coordinates Number Text

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dorothy Pell had been told twice by the florist that the arch was crooked, and twice she had walked out to the lawn with a spirit level and proved it was not. By half past two the marquee smelled of cut lilies and warm sausage rolls, and her nephew Callum was hiding in the boathouse with a bottle of cider and a folded sheet of paper he would not let anyone read.

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She found him sitting on an upturned crate, the paper flattened across his knee. It was a printout of a map of the harbour seen from above, with a blue pin dropped just off the point where the ferries turned. Beside it, in his careful capitals, were two lines of numbers: thirty-three degrees, forty-seven minutes, the seconds trailing off, and a second set for the east.

"Surveyors' coordinates," she said. "Your grandfather would have had them memorised in a week."

"It's where I asked her," Callum said. "Not the pier. The pier was a mistake. She thought I was being sentimental and I wasn't. I wanted the exact spot where the water goes that deep green." He took a long pull on the cider. "Then you'll have to stand on it," Dorothy said, taking the bottle back. "Your bride can't be expected to find a pin in the harbour from the back row."

He laughed, and the paper slid, and she caught it before it blew out through the open door. The last line was a note in pencil: Not a place to be found. A place to be kept. She folded it back along the crease, handed it to him, and said nothing about the smudge on the word harbour.