Fine line black outline tattoo of the state of Florida with a small red heart on the east coast, placed on the upper back near the shoulder blade.

Florida outline with red heart on the back

Fine line · Back · Mixed · Photo

A single unbroken black linework outline of the state of Florida sits on pale skin, with the Panhandle at the top and the peninsula tapering down to a few small dots representing the Keys. A small red heart outline sits on the east coast, creating the only colour in the design. The shot is taken close up and straight on, with the tattoo filling the centre of the frame and a light fabric edge visible at the top.

Fine line Back State outline Map Heart Key

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Ada had been inking coastlines for the state surveyors for nineteen years when her pen started shaking, and Mr Oakes sent her home early with a sandwich wrapped in wax paper. She didn't go home. She walked down to the harbour at Sebastian with her drafting kit under one arm and sat on a bollard until the tide turned, watching the pelicans fail to dive properly.

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Her husband had gone north for the cannery work that spring and had written only twice. The second letter had a pencil sketch folded inside: the peninsula drawn in three quick strokes, the Keys trailing off like a dropped thread. Beneath it he had written, "Here is where I am, and here is where you are," and beside the east coast he had pressed a small circle so hard the paper tore.

She took the letter back to the office that afternoon and asked Mr Oakes for a fine nib and a sheet of vellum. He watched her draw the state in one unbroken line, the Panhandle lifting off the page like a sleeve. Then she did the thing the survey manual forbade. She inked a heart over the place where the circle had torn, gave the Keys their dots, one for each island she could name from memory, and posted the drawing to a cannery in Alaska with no return address.

Three weeks later a postcard came back. It had no words, only a single dot placed carefully beneath the last of the Keys, which was how he had always signed off.