Two forearms side by side, each with a small black outline triangle tattoo in fine line style on the forearm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Matching outline triangles on two forearms

Fine line · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

Two people stand close together, cropped so that only their torsos and forearms show. Each forearm carries a simple black outline triangle, the one on the left smaller than the one on the right. The lines are thin and even, with no shading, and the plain skin and muted clothing keep the focus on the tattoos.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The men from the survey office came up through Larkhill Wood in October with their chains and their tripods, and they left two of us behind to hold the poles. I was fourteen and Tamsin was twelve, and we were the only ones in Ashcombe who could keep a straight line through the bracken without giggling.

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Mr Pryce wanted three points for his triangle: the church spire, the mill chimney, and the flat stone at the top of Dunmere Rise. He said a triangle was the only shape the land could not argue with. Tamsin thought that was the stupidest thing she had ever heard, and she said so, and then she climbed the rise in her wellingtons without being asked and planted the pole herself.

When the theodolite was packed and the men had gone down to the Crown for their supper, we stayed up on the stone with a pot of ink and a bradawl. We pricked three small points into the skin of our forearms, one for each corner, and joined them with a fine nib until the lines stood up black and even. Mine came out larger, because my arm was longer and my hand was heavier. Hers was neater. We agreed it did not matter which was which, so long as we stood close enough for the two shapes to sit side by side.

The chain-men never came back. In spring Mr Pryce sent a letter with a copy of the figures, and the triangle had closed to within a hair's breadth. Tamsin folded it into her boot. Every winter since, when the frost lifts off the rise, we walk up and stand with our arms pressed together until the cold gives out, and the three points are still there for anyone with a compass to find.

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