Black and grey chest tattoo of a lighthouse with rays, a rose and Japanese-style waves on the upper chest, with a tattooed arm visible at the left.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Lighthouse and rose chest piece

Traditional · Chest · Black and grey · Photo

A lighthouse with radiating rays sits at the centre of the chest, with a rose below it and stylised clouds and waves spreading out on either side. The linework is bold and the shading is smooth and high contrast, with the waves built from layered grey tones. The photograph is greyscale, and a dark fabric is pulled down across the lower chest, with a tattooed upper arm at the left edge of the frame.

Traditional Japanese Chest Upper arm Lighthouse Rose Wave Cloud Ray

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The lamp went out at a quarter past two, which Tom always said was the hour the sea made its mind up. I was on the iron stairs before he had found his boots, the oil can knocking my hip at every turn, and I counted the steps the way I used to count hymns at Ellen's wedding, one under my breath so my feet would not stop. There were a hundred and twelve of them, and the wind was pushing at the glass at the top like someone trying to get in.

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The wick had drowned in its own soot and the clockwork had seized with salt, so I took the crank in both hands and turned until my shoulders burned. The great lens began to move on its bed of mercury, slow as a clock hand, and the beam swept out over the black water in a fan of white rays, through the clouds and the spray that climbed the glass like steam off a kettle. I trimmed the wick with Tom's penknife and lit it from a spill in my apron pocket.

Down below, a fishing coble with two lanterns was drifting onto the Long Scar. I watched its small yellow light bob, falter, then steady, turning its nose toward the flash I was throwing for it. When the lamp caught properly I heard Tom shouting from the gallery, but I did not answer him, because I could not take my eyes off the boat until it cleared the rocks.

In the morning I wrote the entry in the log in my neatest hand: lamp relit 2.41, wind south-west, one vessel passed safe. Then I pressed the last rose from Ellen's bouquet between the pages, where the ink had dried brown and gold, and I left the book open on the desk to keep it flat.