Small black fine line hamsa hand with an eye and filigree scrolls on the upper back, just below the neck.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Hamsa hand on the upper back

Fine line · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A small black hamsa hand sits centred on the upper back, just below the nape of the neck. The outline is drawn in fine, even linework, with decorative scrolls and swirls filling the fingers and palm, and an eye motif in the centre of the palm. The design is in solid black ink on a plain background of skin, with the subject's blonde hair tied up and a striped top visible at the bottom of the frame.

Fine line Back Hamsa Hand Eye Filigree Scrollwork

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The plums had started to split on the lower branches by the time Uncle Sami unwrapped the brass hand on the kitchen table. He had carried it up from Jaffa in his coat pocket forty years before, and it still seemed to hold the warmth of his palm. 'Filigree,' he said, tapping the scrolls with a fingernail, 'so the evil eye gets lost in the curls and cannot find its way out.' The eye sat in the middle of the palm like a bead of dark glass.

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I was nineteen and thought I knew what protection looked like. Protection was the fence Dad mended every March, the dog that barked at the lane, the tin of Nescafé with the cash hidden under the lining. I laughed at the hand and said so. Uncle Sami only nodded past me at the orchard, where the pickers' ladders leaned against the Victorias and a wasp was working its way into a split fruit.

We spent the afternoon picking. The ladder wobbled on the wet grass, and I came down twice with bruises I did not mention. By five the crates were stacked by the gate and the sun had gone the colour of weak tea behind the hedge. Sami sat on the low wall turning the brass over and over, and the eye caught the light every time it turned.

When the lorry came for the fruit he pressed the hand into my palm and folded my fingers over it. 'Not for you,' he said. 'For whoever walks the lane after you.' I put it in my coat pocket, where it knocked against my keys all the way down the hill, and I did not take it out again until the next summer, when the orchard had been sold and the trees were stumps.