Black fine line mandala and lotus tattoo running down the centre of a woman's upper back, from the nape of the neck to the mid-back.

Mandala and lotus back piece

Fine line · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A bare back shows a symmetrical tattoo of stacked mandalas, a open lotus flower and leafy sprigs, running from the nape of the neck down the spine. The linework is fine and black, with dotted accents and a small hanging ornament at the base. The image is in natural light against a pale wall with white flowers at the top right, and the skin tone is the only colour.

Fine line Botanical Back Mandala Lotus Leaves Ornament Flower Spine Dotted line

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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

Sit down on that bench, the 4.10 is late again, so you have time for this one. My grandfather walked the line between Carlisle and nowhere, and he carried a brass lamp that he polished every night with a rag and a little paraffin. The lamp had a pattern cut into its glass, a ring of petals folded round a ring of circles, and he said it was a flower that opened only in the dark.

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One winter the signal at Thornhope Junction froze and would not drop. Men came with shovels and went home with cold hands. My grandfather climbed the ladder with his lamp tied to his belt, and he sat in the frozen cabin all night, turning the lamp so its pattern caught the frost on the glass. He said the petals threw light in circles on the ceiling, one ring inside another, until the ice cracked off the arm by itself at dawn.

Ask anyone on this platform what happened next and they will say the signal was mended by the smith. That is the story the company printed. But my grandfather said the lamp had shown him the way a lotus shows you the mud it came from, and that the petals only open once you have sat with the dark long enough to see them.

So when you get on that train, look for the flower in the window frost. It's there, if you are patient enough to wait for it.