Black fine line tattoo of a chemical skeletal formula running along a forearm, with small atom labels, against a brick wall.

Molecular diagram tattoo on a forearm

Fine line · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A black line tattoo of a chemical skeletal formula runs along the inside of a forearm, with a ringed head group on the left and a long zigzag chain of bonds extending to the right. The linework is thin and even, with small chemical labels such as CH3 and O placed at the branch points. The pale skin and muted brick background keep the ink as the only strong colour in the frame.

Fine line Forearm Molecule Chemical structure Ring

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom,

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The boats came in late again on Tuesday, and Dad spent the evening at the kitchen table with a biro and the back of a fish-market invoice. He drew a hexagon with a little bent-over tail, then a long zigzag running off the edge of the paper like line paid out from a reel. Small letters sat at the corners: CH3, CH3, CH3. He said it was the part of the oil that keeps the herring from going off in the hold, and that a chemist in Aberdeen had shown him the same picture in 1974 and he had never forgotten it, because nobody had ever explained a thing to him so plainly.

Mum said it looked like a bus route. He said it looked like a man who had been very patient with a very long string. We laughed, and then he went quiet, turned the invoice over, drew it again smaller, and gave it to me to keep in the tackle box.

I went down to the quay this morning and found the lads gutting on the slip. Brian Reid wanted to know if you were still doing the chemistry. I told him you'd be a doctor soon, and he said that was the same thing as a chemist only with more rules. I expect you'll hate that.

The invoice is in the box beside the spare hooks. I trace the branches with my finger when I can't sleep. Every bend in that chain is a place where something could have gone another way, and somehow it still holds together. Come home at Christmas and I'll show you.

Love, Morag