Black and grey dotwork tattoo of a crescent moon framing a mandala with lotus-like petals, placed on the upper back.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Moon and mandala on upper back

Dotwork · Back · Black and grey · Photo

The tattoo shows a circular mandala with a crescent moon curving along its lower edge, a multi-pointed star at its centre and lotus-like petals around the rim. A pointed ornament with a teardrop motif sits below, with small dots hanging from it. The linework is fine and the shading is built from stippled dots on pale skin across the upper back.

Dotwork Geometric Back Mandala Moon Crescent Star Lotus Dot Ornament

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The crescent hung low over the Marrow Light like a paring from a lemon, and I had the dough proving under a damp cloth before the middle watch had finished its coffee. Ada Penrose came down the ladder with the slops bucket and said the sea had gone flat as a serving plate, which on this ship means somebody is about to be sick or about to be sacked.

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I had nothing to do with the weather, but I had the flour. Every night since the Kestrel left Falmouth I had dusted the scrubbed table with a fistful of plain white and drawn a ring with the base of a tin cup, then a crescent along its lower edge, then a star in the middle from eight strokes of a skewer. Mr Okonedo, the mate, called it my almanac and never once asked me to explain. Ada thought it was a prayer. I told her it was a rota for the rats.

The petals came last, scratched round the rim with the tip of a knife, each one a little drop of a thing. When the table was done I pinched a crumb of dough and let it fall, and the tiny marks it left spattered the edge like rain on a skylight. That was the sign I had been waiting for. Under the flour the star had pointed north-east for six nights running, and the glass had not moved.

On the seventh morning the table was bare. Someone had wiped it clean in the dark, and the ship's cat sat exactly where the moon should have been, looking pleased with itself. I did not ask Ada. I took my cup, dusted the wood again, and started the ring from the beginning, because the lamp was still burning and the wind had turned while I slept.