Black and grey realism tattoo of a hand with crossed fingers on the upper arm, with part of a botanical tattoo visible below the elbow.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Crossed fingers tattoo on upper arm

Realism · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A hand with the index and middle fingers crossed is drawn in fine black linework with hatched and stippled shading across the knuckles and fingers. The design is in black and grey only, with no colour ink. It sits on the outer upper arm above the elbow, and the edge of a second tattoo of flowers and fern leaves is visible at the bottom of the frame against a blurred, pale background.

Realism Upper arm Hand Flower Fern Leaves

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The big top had a tear in the canvas the size of a bedsheet, and Mr Vell had decided the rain would hold off until Saturday if we all behaved as though it would. So on Thursday I stood at the ticket hut with my coat pockets full of rain-soaked programmes, two fingers of my right hand hooked over two of my left, and told the bank manager from Doncaster that the elephant was only resting.

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Ruth, who had been on the trapeze since before I was born, said it was bad luck to cross them for anything but a lie, and that a lie told that way cost nothing. She taught me at the tent pegs the winter the wagons went to Hull and never came back. Mostly we were promised things. A clerk in the council offices promised a permit. The farrier promised he would be paid after the fair. Lenny, who juggled the clubs we kept sharp for the fire act, promised he would stop drinking before the Whitsun date.

By August there were eleven of us, a calliope with three working keys, and a grey mare called Parson who still knew the bugle call for the grand entry. I kept my fingers crossed through the whole ring act, through the empty stands on the Monday, through the morning Mr Vell sat on an upturned crate and counted the takings twice.

On the last night we played to forty people and a spaniel. Afterwards Ruth leaned against the centre pole and laughed at me, her own hands tucked under her elbows. I uncrossed mine and found the fingers had stiffened the way they do when you hold a hope too long. Then I walked out past the empty ring and left the lights on for whoever pitched here next.