Small colour tattoo of a geometric dolphin with blue, teal and pink watercolour splashes on the upper back near the shoulder blade.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Geometric dolphin on upper back

Geometric · Back · Colour · Photo

A small dolphin is tattooed on the upper back near the shoulder blade, leaping upwards and drawn from fine, faceted lines that divide its body into triangular panels. The panels are filled with soft washes of blue, teal, violet and pink, with loose splashes of colour above the dolphin's back. The tattoo sits centrally in the frame against plain, lightly lit skin.

Geometric Fine line Back Dolphin Sea creature Splash Animal

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Ruth had the roll of masking tape between her teeth and the storm glass half cleaned when the dolphin broke the surface below the rocks, three lengths out, lifting clear of the swell as if the sea had thrown it. She spat the tape into her palm. Nobody had seen a dolphin off Scarrow Head since her father's time, and he had kept a book about it.

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She went down the iron stairs two at a time, coat unbuttoned, the wind shoving at the boathouse door. By the time she reached the lower ledge the animal was circling, its back a patchwork of blue and green where the light caught it, edges sharp as folded paper. Each time it leapt, a spray of violet water hung in the air and then broke apart like paint dropped on wet paper. Ruth found herself counting the facets of its body, the way her father used to count gulls, and losing count at nine.

The dolphin stayed near the rocks until the beam swung round and its underside flashed pink. Then it turned, slid beneath a wave, and came up further out, looking back once with an eye she could not read. Ruth had the feeling of being checked, the way the harbour master checked the tide tables against his watch.

She climbed back up with wet hems and a splinter of salt under her nail, and wrote in the logbook: Dolphin, east ledge, four minutes, heading out on the ebb. Then she sat beside the cracked glass and taped the seam properly, and the light kept turning.