Paisley floral tattoo across upper back
Fine line · Back · Black and grey · Photo
A large, symmetrical paisley-style design of flowers, leaves and ornamental teardrop shapes sits centrally on the upper back. The thin, even black linework builds up dotted and hatched detail within the leaves and petals, with no shading or fill. The photograph is black and white, framed from behind so the subject's head is cropped out, with the design filling most of the frame.
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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction
Dear Idris, the shawls went down to the boat on Tuesday, forty-two of them rolled in oilcloth, and Mr Karim made me count every one on the quay because he does not trust the porters with anything that has a border. I have kept back the spare drawing for you. It is the big boteh, the teardrop with the flower stalk running up its spine like a lit candle, and I have finished the dotting on the leaves the way you taught me, with the point of a pin and never ink pooled in the corners.
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I showed Mr Karim the finished sheet this morning and he went very quiet, which is how he tells me something is right. Then he took my pen and lifted one small petal off the crown of the pattern, leaving a gap so the design does not close on itself. A boteh that closes becomes a cage, he said, and nobody should sew a cage onto good wool. I asked whether that was a rule from his father. He said it was a rule from the cloth, and went back to his tea.
So the drawing is in the tin with your letters, and I have pinned a tracing of it inside the lid as well, so you will see it every time you open the chest. Keep it dry. Do not let the cook at the galley stove use it to wrap the onions, however kindly he asks. He has already eyed the tracing paper twice.
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