Forearm tattoo of an ornate skeleton key with grey scrollwork, a teal infinity symbol and a grey leaf motif, photographed against a black background.

Key and infinity symbol on a forearm

Forearm · Mixed · Photo

A forearm carries a large ornate key with grey scrollwork and swirling foliage above the wrist. Below it sit a teal infinity symbol and a grey leaf-like ornament, with fine shading on the key and scrolls. The hand is shown open against a black background, with a spiked leather and chain bracelet at the wrist.

Forearm Key Infinity symbol Scrollwork Leaf Swirl

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The caretaker's cupboard on the eleventh floor of Ashgrove House smelled of bleach and wet cardboard, and Dolan had been counting keys in it since six. Four hundred and twelve flat keys, forty-one stairwell doors, and one brass master that nobody had signed for since 1987. Every Friday the council sent a clipboard up to check the numbers, and every Friday they didn't match, so Dolan would stand in the dim with a torch in his teeth and recount until the tally felt less like arithmetic and more like a prayer.

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Then the lift shuddered and a boy from flat 1104 knocked, holding a chip shop bag like a lantern. His nan had locked herself out again. Dolan took the master from its hook. It was heavier than it looked, its bow worked with curling leaves and iron scrolls, and he had always thought it too fancy for a block where the doors were fire-grey and the rest of the fittings came out of a catalogue.

Flat 1104 opened on the third try. Inside, the nan sat in a dressing gown with the telly on mute, and she did not look surprised. "That key of yours," she said, "my Harold cut it for this block in 1971. Said the lock would outlast the building." She laughed, and somewhere behind her the lock clicked back into its old, reluctant habit.

Dolan walked the stairs down with the key warm in his palm. At the bottom he hung it on its hook and made one neat tick in the book beside the number. The count held. He stood there a while longer than he needed to, listening to the lift groan up to the eleventh floor for nobody.