Black fine line geometric tattoo of two arrow-like shapes with zigzag bands and cross motifs on the inner forearm.

Geometric arrow design on inner forearm

Geometric · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A close-up of a healed or fresh tattoo on the inner forearm, showing two large arrow or feather-like shapes built from straight fine lines. Zigzag bands, small triangles and cross marks fill the shapes, and short tick strokes run along the outer edges. The work is done in solid black ink with no shading or colour, and the design fills the frame diagonally across the arm.

Geometric Fine line Forearm Arrow Feather Triangle Zigzag Geometric pattern Cross

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The last bus of the night leaves the depot at twenty to one, and by then the chalk is always the first thing you reach for. Ruth at dispatch hands you the tin without looking up from her screen, the way she hands out everything after midnight, and you crouch on the wet tarmac of the layby with the streetlight buzzing overhead. The council stencils went in the spring. Now it is you and a stub of white chalk, drawing the arrows that tell the drivers where the road has gone missing.

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Your arrows are never simple. Two fans of straight lines spread from a single point, like a heron coming down onto black water, and between them you run zigzags for the kerbs and small triangles for the junctions. Where the bridge works close the Attercliffe road you mark a cross, and along the outer edges you tick short strokes so a driver with tired eyes can count the turnings without reading a word. Your uncle drew the same pattern in the margins of his navigation logs on the Humber tugs, and he swore a man could steer by it in fog.

Tonight the drizzle has washed the left fan half away before half past twelve. You redraw it from memory, lines and ticks and the cross for the closed bridge, your fingers going numb and grey with dust. Headlights swing across the shelter as the 52 comes round the bend, slow and careful, and the driver reads the arrow pointing left, the way home, and takes it without a second look.

Ruth raises a hand from the office window when the bus is gone. You pack the tin, rub your palm on your jeans, and walk back under the orange lamps with the chalk still pale on your knuckles. Nobody ever thanks the arrows. They only have to be right.