Small fine line lotus tattoo with three dots above it on the centre of the torso, framed by two hands with dark nail polish.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Fine line lotus with three dots

Fine line · Other · Black and grey · Photo

A small black lotus flower sits centrally on the skin, with its petals outlined in fine single-needle linework and inner petals filled with patterned dotwork. Three evenly spaced dots run vertically above the flower, with a faint line leading up toward them. The image is black and white, and the two hands with dark nails rest on either side of the tattoo to frame it.

Fine line Botanical Other Lotus Flower Dot Mandala Hand

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Ruth,

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The seeds came through the post at Penang wrapped in oilcloth and a page torn from your father's almanac, which is the only reason I knew what to do with them. Three hard grey beads, the colour of pond stones, that the customs man rattled in his palm like dice. He asked what they were for. I told him they were for waiting.

I have kept them in the chipped saucer on the windowsill since March. Every morning I fill it with rainwater and change it, and every morning the water is a little clearer than the morning before, which is more than I can say for the rest of this house. The clock on the landing has stopped again. Mr Abernethy from next door says he will mend it, but he said that about the roof.

On Tuesday the first seed split. Not dramatically. A pale crack like a fingernail on a boiled egg, then a green tongue pushing out into the water. I sat on the kitchen step and laughed until I frightened the cat. It is a foolish business, I know, a lotus in a Norfolk kitchen, but this morning the leaf unrolled the size of a farthing, and at its centre were three dark specks in a row, as neat as stitches.

Come home in the spring. Bring the boy. We will carry the saucer out to the water butt and see what the mud has to say for itself.

Love, Mum