Black linework outline of an ornamental lotus-style design with filigree swirls, tattooed on the upper back.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Ornamental lotus outline on the upper back

Back · Black and grey · Photo

A symmetrical ornamental design shown as black outline work, with a central pointed motif rising from a teardrop-shaped frame. Curling scrolls and small leaf-like flourishes fill the sides, and a lower petal-shaped detail sits at the base. The design is shown in black line only, with no shading or colour, against lightly lit skin.

Back Lotus Ornament Filigree Swirl Teardrop Scroll Leaf Outline

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell, the last bracket went up on the north canopy this morning, and Mr Pryce climbed the ladder to inspect it with his hat crushed in both hands, which is as near to praise as he gets. The pattern is a lotus, though the company's drawings call it a scroll ornament. I cut the petals myself from the pattern book's worst plate and filed the curls so they turn inward, as if the whole thing were leaning toward the tracks to hear what's coming.

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Every bracket is cast from the same mould, but no two are finished alike. I kept a tally in the back of my day book: forty-one scrolls, twelve leaves, one small base petal I made deliberately crooked so the foreman would stop asking me to fix it. The iron was hot enough at dusk that I could see the teardrop frame glowing dull red against the sky, and young Alfie from the signal box stood underneath with his mouth open as if I'd hung a chandelier up there.

Last night the 9.40 pulled through without stopping, and I watched from the bench. The lamplight came down through the open lattice and laid a teardrop of shadow across the platform boards, lotus and all, and it slid along with the carriages until it ran off the end into the dark. Alfie walked out and stood in the middle of it, very still, the way you'd stand in a church.

I don't think he's noticed I'm watching. Write soon, and tell me whether your mother has forgiven the smoke on the curtains.

Yours, Tom