Black linework tattoo of a cross, an angular G-like shape, a chevron, an open triangle and a solid triangle, in a row on a lower leg.

Cross and geometric shapes on a calf

Geometric · Calf · Black and grey · Photo

A small row of black geometric symbols sits across the lower leg: a cross, an angular G-like outline, a chevron, an open triangle and a solid triangle with soft shading. The lines are crisp and even, and the solid triangle is shaded to a grey gradient. The photo is taken straight on against a plain light background, with the tattoo centred in the frame.

Geometric Calf Cross Triangle Chevron Geometric shape

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dunphy never wrote in the lift logbook when he could chalk something instead, so by the spring the stairwell of Calder House was full of his marks, tucked into the corners where the damp had lifted the paint. The residents stopped asking what they meant. I was the one who got the job of reading them, because I was the only tenant on the fourteenth floor who still had a pencil in her apron and nothing better to do with her evenings.

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The cross went over the door of the ground-floor laundry, where the machines ran hot and Mrs Adeyemi sang hymns over the spin cycle. The angular G marked the bin store gate, which only opened if you lifted it a certain way. The chevron pointed up the stairs, and the open triangle sat on the lift shaft, which had been out of order since Christmas. I thought the sequence was a route, a way of getting from the door to the roof without asking anyone for the key.

On the last day before the council sent its painters, I climbed the final flight and found the solid triangle at the hatch. He had gone over it so many times the chalk had worn into a soft grey, like shadow on a wall at dusk. I sat on the top step with my back against the hatch and copied the whole row onto the inside cover of the logbook, cross to shadow, so the next caretaker would know the way up. Then I rubbed the shaded triangle with my thumb until it blurred, and went back down before the light went.