Black ink ornamental tattoo of a lotus-style band with a curling spiral above it, on the inner forearm.

Ornamental lotus band on a forearm

Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A dark ink tattoo shows a stylised lotus motif with a scalloped, paisley-like centre and a band of petal shapes across the lower section, with a small spiral line rising above it. The linework is bold and even, and the dotted shading adds texture to some petals. The tattoo is shown in black ink only, set against pale skin and a dark background.

Forearm Lotus Spiral Paisley Petal Band Dot Ornament

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The abbot's scriptorium at Wrenhallow smelled of oak gall and wet lime, and Brother Tobias had no patience for novices who fussed. "A border must never trap the eye," he told me, tapping the desk with the back of his pen. "Let it climb and let it go." So I learned the lotus the way the older hands did: first the scalloped petals in a row like a skirt of little bells, then the teardrop at the heart, then the flare of leaves that could be a crown or a flame, depending on the light from the east window.

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The trouble began in February, when the infirmarian asked for a psalter for Brother Edmund, who had gone blind in one eye and wanted something to hold. I painted the band across the foot of the leaf the way I had been taught, and then, because my hand was steady that morning and the ink was thick, I added the dots. Tobias saw them and said nothing. Each dot was a prayer he had made me say aloud while I worked, one for every petal, and I had lost count somewhere in the fourth row, so I simply kept going until the ink ran out.

Edmund died before the leaf was dry. Afterwards I was given the job of finishing the page with the spiral that goes at the top, a single rising stroke Tobias called the thread. He showed me how to lift the brush so the line thinned to nothing. "Let it out of the window," he said. I did, and the thin end stopped just short of the vellum's edge, where a draught from the cloister door lifted it, very slightly, as if something on the other side had reached for it.