Black and grey fine line geometric tattoo of stacked arrow, circles and triangles running vertically down the centre of a person's upper back.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Geometric arrow motif down the upper back

Geometric · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A vertical column of geometric shapes sits on the centre of the upper back, starting with a small arrowhead at the top. Below it are circles, outlined triangles, a solid inverted triangle and a set of stacked chevrons at the base. The linework is thin and crisp, shown in black ink against soft grey skin, and the composition is centred with plenty of empty skin around it. A dark beaded cord runs across the top edge of the frame.

Geometric Fine line Back Arrow Circle Triangle Chevron Geometric shape Spine

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Old Hanne the galley cook had one rule: the pot never boiled on a Sunday, and any mate who broke it got the bitter end of the peas. One grey morning in the Skagerrak, the boy Tobiah came down the companion ladder with the ship's log under his arm and said the arrow on the slate had turned around in the night.

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The slate hung above the bread locker, scratched with the marks the crew used to keep the course. At the top was an arrowhead pointing north. Below it sat a ring for the sun, then a triangle for the rudder, then a second ring, and a solid black triangle that Hanne had scored in the spring her husband's boat went missing. At the bottom were three stacked chevrons for the wake. She had never told anyone what the shapes meant, only that they kept the ship honest.

Tobiah had carried the lamp up to the wheel the night before. When he came back down he found the arrowhead pointing south, back the way they had come, and the wake chevrons scratched fresh and sharp. Hanne took the slate from its nail, wiped it with a damp cloth, and read it slowly, the way she read a recipe. "The shapes don't lie," she said, "only the men who read them in a hurry."

She rebuilt the column with a nail and a candle stub, arrow up, and hung the slate back where it belonged. By supper the wind had come round into the south and the ship was running for the Norwegian coast with the sea behind her. Nobody mentioned the slate again, though Tobiah looked up at it every time he passed the locker, and Hanne let the peas go cold that Sunday rather than trust her hands to the pot.