Black linework tattoo of interlocking concentric circles running down the outer forearm, in a geometric style.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Interlocking circles down a forearm

Geometric · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A column of black outlined circles, some with inner rings and small dots, runs from the wrist towards the elbow. The lines are bold and even, with solid black fill in places and no shading. The skin is light and the arm fills most of the frame against a dark leather couch.

Geometric Forearm Circle Ring Concentric circle Dot

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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

Dear Mags, you asked why I haven't written since the Hallam Pass posting, so here is the whole truth in one go. Last Tuesday a lorry came through with a driver who had no proper papers, only a satchel full of cards covered in rings. Rings inside rings, with dots sitting in the gaps like seeds. I took them for raffle tickets. Sergeant Farrant said they were a child's homework and waved him on.

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But the driver stood at the barrier and would not move until I looked properly. He tapped one card, a column of circles running down the page, then tapped his own wrist where the same column ran up the skin under his sleeve. I rolled the cuff back. The ink was old and furred at the edges, as if it had been done quickly by someone who knew the pattern by heart.

I read it the way you'd read a timetable. The small circles were the hours, the larger ones the days, and the dots marked where a line could turn. The bottom ring was the border itself. I stamped his card with the date the ring nearest the elbow showed, and he nodded as though I had finally said something correct.

He left the cards on the counter. Under them was one last sheet, empty except for a single circle with a dot at its centre. Beside it, in my own handwriting, which I do not remember writing, is a sentence I have read a dozen times: come back through on the seventh ring. Write when you can. Tom.