Black and grey tattoo of a three-dimensional cube frame holding small figures and skeletal shapes, on the inner upper arm.

Figures inside a cube on the upper arm

Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A three-dimensional open cube frame sits at the centre of the image, with small figures and skeletal forms drawn inside it. The linework is bold and dark, with grey shading that gives the figures and frame depth. The tattoo is shown in black and grey on a pale arm against a dark chair and a blue paper towel, with the design filling the centre of the frame.

Upper arm Cube Figure Skeleton Frame

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Margit had been told the cube was for a dentist in Leeds: an open frame of ash, twelve inches a side, no lid and no back, nothing inside it but air. She cut the mortises by hand over three evenings and wrapped it in an old bedsheet for the courier. On the fourth morning she found herself still measuring the inside corners with a rule she did not remember picking up.

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The dentist rang a week later. There were figures in the frame, he said, three of them, and he had not put them there. One lay along the top rail as if asleep on a shelf. One hung from the middle strut by its elbows. The third was bent over a bowl that was not there, and its skull was turned towards the glass. He had photographed everything and sent the pictures with the subject line Your joints? Her joints were perfect. She had checked them twice with a square.

She drove to Leeds on the Saturday with a cold cup of tea wedged between her knees. The cube sat on the windowsill of his surgery, where the afternoon light came through the ash in bars. The figure on the top rail had moved. It was sitting up now, one hand flat against the wood, and the bowl had been filled with a single red apple that had not been there before. The dentist stood behind her and said nothing, and neither did she.

She took a pencil from her apron and drew a line on the base of the frame, the way she marked a finished piece. Then she lifted it, turned the open side to face the wall, and set it down again. The figure on the rail lay back slowly, as if it had been waiting for permission. The next morning Margit started on a lid.