Black and grey dotwork tattoo of a nautilus shell on the inner upper arm, with the spiral shading built from small dots.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Nautilus shell on the inner upper arm

Dotwork · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A small nautilus shell with a spiral chamber sits on the inner upper arm. The shell is built from stippled dots and fine lines that define the ridges and curve of the spiral, with the shading heavier along the outer edge. The image is black and grey, shot close up against a softly blurred background with a grey sleeve at the top.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Sit closer, the lamp only lights one of us properly. Thirty years I have worked this crossing, and every traveller who comes through with nothing but a grudge in their coat tells me the same thing: the road is too long and the house is too far behind. Let me tell you about the nautilus, who never had that complaint.

Keep reading

She lived in the warm shallows past the last buoy, and she carried her house on her back, which is the sensible way to do it. When the sea turned sour she sealed off the rooms she no longer needed and moved her life forward one chamber at a time. Every old room stayed behind her, folded into the curl, and she never once lost the key.

A customs man came down to the water one summer with a clipboard and asked her to declare what she was carrying. She uncoiled a little, enough to show him the first chamber, pale as milk, then the next, and the next, each smaller than the last, all of them still hers. He counted for a long time. Then he stamped nothing at all and walked back up the shingle, and the tide smoothed his footprints away before he reached the road.

The sea still keeps every room she gave it. You can see them on the sand at low water, if you know how to look.

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