Two versions of a stylised flame design with spirals, a Greek key motif and wave lines, one in black outline and one in rainbow colour, shown as a tattoo flash design.

Flame and spiral design in line and colour

Mixed · Flash

The image shows a flame-shaped emblem with three flame tongues, two spiral curls, a square Greek key motif and layered wave lines running across the base. The left version is a black outline drawing with even, smooth linework on a white background. The right version repeats the same design with a rainbow wash of red, yellow, green and blue fills, with the lines kept dark.

Flame Spiral Wave Symbol Emblem

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell,

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The kiln at Carrick Wharf went out again on Tuesday, so I have been sitting on an upturned crate with my boots in the tide wash, which is the only warm place left in Ashgrove once the gasworks shuts. You would laugh at me. Mr Pemberton says the flame has a mind of its own, and I have decided he is right, because the blue tongue at the bottom keeps trying to lie down the way a cat does before rain.

Last night I found the old tile Granddad hid under the tar barrels. It has the same mark we pressed into the bread trays when we were small: three flames standing up like a crown, two curls at the sides, and that square zigzag running along the bottom like a step going down to the water. He told me once it meant the fire knows where the sea begins. I thought it was nonsense then.

I carried the tile up to the scullery and held it under the lamp until the glaze caught. The curls turned the wrong way round, the way they do in a mirror, and I saw that the flames were not burning upward at all but pulling in, like a hand closing on something it wants to keep.

I am going to take the tile to Carrick Wharf on Sunday and set it in the cooling pit. If the fire stays, I will know Granddad was right. If it doesn't, I will at least have stopped being afraid of the dark on the water.

Write soon. Tell Mother the bread is safe.

Yours, Tom