Black and grey dotwork mandala with a solid black triangle at its centre, tattooed across the upper back of a person with a shaved head.

Mandala with solid triangle across upper back

Dotwork · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A large mandala of radiating petals and fine lattice work sits across the upper back, with a solid black triangle filling its centre. The mandala is built from dense stippled dotwork and clean outlines, and the triangle is fully packed black. The ink is black and grey only, set against pale skin with a plain light background.

Dotwork Geometric Blackwork Back Mandala Triangle Petal Lattice Dot

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Ruth,

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You will think I have gone soft, but I have spent three nights now on the roof of the Carrow Street mill, drawing the thing you would never believe. From the fire escape at two in the morning the whole city lies below in rings: the gasworks lamps, then the terraces, then the ring road strung with taillights. Whoever built the mill set its rose window so that every iron petal points at the same black slate triangle bolted over the old hoist shaft. Nobody I have asked knows who put it there.

I counted the petals: twelve on the outer ring, then eight, then a lattice of tiny perforations where the rain collects and freezes. Last Tuesday I sat on the parapet with my flask while the wind came up the valley, and every dot of that lattice caught a streetlight at once, like a sieve full of sparks. The triangle stayed dark. It reflects nothing. I laid my palm on it and it was warm, which is absurd, since that slate has sat out in January sleet for ninety years.

Mr Okonedo at the chandler's says the clockmaker who designed the rose used the triangle as a mark for the night watch. When the dark shape covers the centre, it is time to come down. So I came down. The clock in the square said twenty to four. I am writing this at the kitchen table with the kettle on and the window going grey, and I find I have stopped checking the sky every few minutes.

Come up on Sunday and bring a pencil. Lock the gate behind you, the porter insists.

Love, Tom