Close-up of an ornate elephant head tattoo with floral and mandala-like patterns, a small star and a lotus flower, on the side of a person's ribs.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Ornate elephant head tattoo on the ribs

Ribs · Mixed · Photo

An elephant head fills the frame, its face and trunk decorated with dense ornamental patterns, paisley-like swirls and a lotus-style flower on the forehead. The linework is dark and shaded in grey, with muted pink, red and yellow accents in the flower and details. The tattoo sits on the side of the torso, with a small star to the right and a blurred background.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The dust on the road to Pokaran came up through the floor of the lorry, and Mohan kept one hand on the wheel and the other on the rail that held the carved elephant in place. It was a teak thing, a little taller than a man's shoulder, and every pothole sent its trunk knocking against the tailboard. Old Shanti had painted it over three seasons. Every swirl on its face was a dot of ochre or grey, placed by hand, and she had told him each one was a small prayer she could not say out loud.

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He had promised to deliver it to a shop in Bikaner before the wedding season, where a jeweller's widow was waiting to set it beside her shrine. The road ran straight and white for forty kilometres with nothing on it but the shimmer of heat and a single water tower, and Mohan found himself talking to the elephant the way he talked to his daughter when she was small. He told it about the goats that had wandered onto the tarmac, and the tea stall that charged too much, and the lotus on its brow, which had cracked slightly in the cold.

At a dry well near the turn-off, a boy in a red shirt sold him a bottle of water and asked where the elephant was going. Mohan opened his mouth to say Bikaner, then looked at the painted face in the mirror and found he could not remember the widow's name. He untied the ropes himself, lowered the elephant onto the sand and turned it so its painted eyes faced the rising road. The boy stood beside him, squinting, and said nothing for a long while. When Mohan drove away, the lorry empty and light, he watched in the mirror as the boy sat down in front of the figure, the lotus catching the sun.

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From the plentytattoo archive, uploaded by a user. Is this your work? Ask for credit or removal.