Black ink drawing of an ornate geometric mandala design with a central open circle, drawn on white paper, with no body placement shown.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Ornate black ink mandala design

Geometric · Black and grey · Flash

A black ink drawing of a symmetrical mandala built around a central open circle, with layered rings of fine swirls, petal shapes and scrollwork. Fine linework and small dots fill the surrounding space, with sparse dotted accents and small motifs along the edges. The design is shown in black on a plain off-white background, centred in the frame.

Geometric Dotwork Mandala Circle Swirl Scrollwork Petal Dot Ornament

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell, the rain has finally given up on the lane, so I am writing this at the bench with the window open and the smell of wet hawthorn coming in. Mr Oakes sent me to the back room this morning to clean the great regulator, the one that has not kept time since before the fire. I took the case off and found the dial had been painted over twice, once in green and once in a cheerful red, and under both there was a ring of tiny scrolls, like the ones your mother used to draw on the edges of her recipe cards.

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I spent the whole afternoon with a loupe and a bent pin, lifting the paint one curl at a time. Under the scrolls there was a circle of petals, and in the middle of them a hole where the minute hand's arbor had been. Someone, a long time ago, had built the whole face around that empty centre on purpose, so that the hands would turn around nothing at all. Mr Oakes says that is a fool's notion. Yet when I held the pin very still I could feel the dots along the rim pulling my eye round and round, as if the clock were already going.

I am going to ask him on Monday whether we can leave the centre open and fit the movement behind it instead, so the face shows the nothing and the hands are only shadows. He will say no. I will ask again. If you come up at Easter I will show you the dial by daylight, and you can tell me whether I have lost my wits or found something worth keeping.

Your loving brother, Tom