Black fine line lotus flower tattoo with dotwork detail on the ankle, above a pink sock and olive trouser leg.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Lotus flower on an ankle

Fine line · Ankle · Black and grey · Photo

A lotus flower with layered outlined petals and a dotted centre sits on the lower leg, with a short dotted line above and below it. The linework is thin and uniform in black ink, with stippled dots adding texture inside the inner petals. The tattoo is centred on pale skin against a dark leather chair, with rolled olive trousers above and a pink sock below.

Fine line Botanical Dotwork Ankle Lotus Flower Dot Petal

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell,

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The lotus came up again this morning, the first of the season, pushed through the black water of the mill pond as if it had been waiting for permission. You'll remember the pond was only a cattle wallow when you were small. Your mother had me dig it out the summer the beeches came down in the gale, and I swore it would never be anything but mud. Then a seed came in on a duck's foot, of all things, and I have been losing an argument with it ever since.

The dots are the thing I can't explain to the vicar. Every bud sits on a line of little dark specks, one above where the water breaks and one below where the roots go down into the silt. I counted them the first year and got eleven, then lost count when the frogs started. You always said I should write the names of things down, so here they are: the boat is still tied at the alder, the gate on the forest path needs a new hinge, and Mrs Haddow has taken to leaving eggs on the stile for me, which I suspect is her way of asking after you without asking.

Come at the back end of summer, if the trains are running. Walk in by the old drove road, not the main path, because the path floods where the stream crosses. Stand at the water's edge and count the petals. There are more than there were.

Yours, Dad