Fine line black tattoo of overlapping circles, dotted rings, arrows and dots on the side of the body.

Overlapping circles and arrows in fine line

Fine line · Other · Black and grey · Photo

A tattoo of several overlapping circles, some solid and some dotted, crossed by thin straight lines that end in small arrowheads and dots. The linework is very fine and even, and the design is built in black ink with no shading or fill. The tattoo sits near the centre of the frame on smooth, pale skin, with a dark garment edge visible at the top.

Fine line Geometric Other Circle Arrow Line Dot Dotted circle Geometric shape

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

You are fourteen the summer the Halloran fair pitches on the common at Sallow Cross, and the only thing you want is a go on the Orrery, the ride with three steel rings that turn on different axes so each car traces a loop that never quite closes. Old Mr Teague, who minds the generator, tells you nobody rides it twice in the same direction.

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He shows you how the arrows on his chalkboard work: a line for each car's path, a dot where two rings cross, a dotted ring for one that has already been taken down. "Every circle keeps a shadow," he says, tapping the dotted one with the chalk stub. "That's the place it used to be." You copy the pattern onto the back of a ticket stub with a borrowed pencil, pressing hard so the lines come out straight and even.

On the last night the rain comes in sideways and the wind works loose the top ring. You hold the paraffin lamp while Teague tightens the bolts with bare, cold fingers. He says nothing until the axle is free, then tells you the whole thing will be packed into the lorry by morning and sent to a fair in Wales you will never see. You ask where it goes after that. He looks at the ticket in your pocket, soft and grey from the rain, and says the trick is to keep drawing the paths after the metal has stopped.

Every October since, you sit at a kitchen table in a town that has never seen a travelling fair and sketch the rings again. You draw the solid ones first, then the dotted one, then the small arrows pointing down into the middle, where the last car still hangs in the air over the common.