Two black fine line tattoos of chemical structures: a dopamine molecule on the top of a foot and a serotonin molecule on skin above the chest.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Dopamine and serotonin molecules on skin

Fine line · Other · Black and grey · Photo

The top panel shows a fine black line drawing of a benzene ring with two hydroxyl groups and an ethylamine chain, labelled HO and NH2, on the top of a foot. The lower panel shows a larger molecular drawing with an indole ring, a hydroxyl group and an NH2 side chain, on a close crop of skin. Both use crisp, even linework in black ink with no shading or colour, and each structure is centred in its panel against plain skin.

Fine line Other Molecule Chemical structure

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Ruth, The bus still stops at the petrol station outside Tonopah, though nobody has pumped fuel there since the spring. I sat on the kerb with your postcard and read the bit about the boys at the reservoir again, the one where you said Dad wouldn't come down off the roof. I'm not coming home for that. Instead I'm sending what I meant to send, copied out on the back of a napkin because my hand wouldn't write it any other way.

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Do you remember Mr Holloway's chemistry prize, the jar of blue crystals he handed out in the fourth year? He said everything that mattered in a body came down to small rings and little reaching arms, and that one extra oxygen could tip a whole person over. We laughed. I'm not laughing now. The first shape is a hexagon with two hooked oxygens bolted to it, and a thin arm running out to a nitrogen that wants to hold on to something. The second is a bigger, odder ring, a pinched double shape with the same reaching arm and an oxygen on the far side pointing the wrong way.

The lorry driver who gave me a lift from Goldfield said the two rings were cousins that did different jobs, one for wanting and one for keeping calm. I thought that was rubbish until he pulled over so we could watch the sunset through his windscreen, the sky going the colour of Holloway's crystals. I didn't tell him I'd spent the whole ride trying to work out which ring I was.

I'm writing this on the bench outside the motel because the driver says the bus will wait an hour. If I miss it, I'll walk. Tell Dad the rings are drawn neat, no shading, nothing hidden. Tell him I'll be back when the arms stop reaching. Love, Nell.