Black and grey mandala tattoo with lotus-like petals on the side of a torso above the waist, in a botanical style.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Mandala tattoo on the side ribs

Botanical · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

A black and grey mandala tattoo with layered lotus-like petals sits on the side of the torso, curving up towards the ribs. Fine outlines are filled with grey shading and small dotted details, giving the pattern depth. The bare midriff and white bedding fill the rest of the frame, with the tattoo as the clear focus.

Botanical Ribs Mandala Lotus Flower Petal

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The guard at Halden Ford unfolded the paper twice before he believed it was only a drawing. Mira watched his thumb move over the petals, ring after ring of them, each one opening inside the next like a lotus that could not decide where to end. Behind her the river ran brown and loud over the stones, and the line of carts stood steaming in the cold, the donkeys blowing and stamping.

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"A mandala," she said. "My aunt asked for it. She wants it stitched into the lining of her wedding shawl so she carries it over the water with her." This was half a lie. The shawl had been her mother's, and her mother had been dead four winters. The drawing had come to Mira folded inside the prayer book, and her mother had once told her that a thing with enough petals could never be counted by a man in a hurry.

The guard counted anyway, pencil tip touching each petal in turn. Mira counted with him, under her breath, and they arrived at different numbers. He found one more than she remembered. She said the outermost petal belonged to the river, that it had been drawn so the water could take a little and leave the rest alone. The guard looked at the queue, at the carts backing up to the bend, and at the paper, and decided that a river was not his concern. He folded the lotus along its old creases and handed it back.

On the far bank the wind came off the hills and pulled at the paper. The outermost petal tore free and spun away over the reeds, and Mira watched it settle in the brown water and drift out of sight. She tucked what was left inside her coat and walked on up the road, and by the time the sun cleared the ridge the pattern was half the size it had been, still open, still holding.