Black and grey mandala tattoo with an infinity symbol at its centre, placed on the top of a shoulder.

Mandala with infinity symbol on shoulder

Geometric · Shoulder · Black and grey · Photo

A circular mandala design with a flower-like outline, pointed petals, scalloped edges, small diamond shapes and rows of dots. At the centre sits an infinity symbol inside a beaded ring, and the inner petals are softly shaded in grey. Bold black outlines contrast with the lighter grey shading, and the design sits across the top of the shoulder.

Geometric Dotwork Shoulder Mandala Flower Lotus Infinity symbol Petal Dot Diamond

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The compass rose had been scratched into the chart table long before Tobias Wren came aboard, and every night he traced its eight points with a thumb while the mate counted the watch. Eleven weeks out of Bristol, the Persephone had not sighted land, only the same grey swell rolling under a sky the colour of wet slate.

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Tobias was the chronometer boy, paid to wind the brass box in the captain's cabin and enter its readings in a ledger. On the twelfth morning he wrote down the same figure he had written the day before, because the box had stopped. He shook it. He held it to his ear. The hands sat at a quarter past four, and the second hand would not move for anyone.

He drew a design on the inside cover of the ledger to pass the watches: a lotus of pointed petals, a ring of small dots, a border of diamonds, and at its heart a figure eight lying on its side. The mate called that sign the lazy serpent and said sailors drew it when they wanted a voyage that never ended. When the captain came in and saw the page, he studied it for a long time and then asked whether the boy had ever considered that the box might have stopped on purpose.

Tobias did not answer. He opened the glass, set the balance wheel moving with one careful nudge, and listened to the small steady ticking fill the cabin. Above deck the wind had backed round to the north-east. He entered the true time in the ledger, closed the cover over his drawing, and went up to tell the mate that they were heading home.