Black and white flash sheet of Polynesian-style tribal bands and face motifs with spirals, sawtooth edges and bold solid shapes, shown as designs rather than on skin.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Polynesian-style tribal design sheet in black

Black and grey · Flash

A flash sheet of four horizontal panels of tribal-style designs drawn in solid black on white. The panels include bands of spirals and curved shapes, and two face-like motifs with stylised eyes, nose and open mouths. Bold solid blacks are set against fine white linework and dotted details, with sawtooth edges framing the central motifs.

Tribal Polynesian Face Spiral Band Geometric pattern Flash sheet

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Ruth had been cutting the same sawtooth border for eleven years, and the sheet that came back from the printers on Tuesday had a crease running straight through the second face. She laid it on the light box and pressed her thumb along the fold until the black stopped looking like ink and started looking like weather.

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Her uncle Dennis had drawn these panels by hand in a notebook with a biro that skipped. He never explained the faces. "They're just what the lines want to do," he said, when she asked why the mouths were open. He had sold the flash to a parlour in Southend in 1987 and never once asked for a cheque to be posted to him.

On Thursday a woman from the parlour rang to ask whether the spirals could be cut a little tighter. Ruth said no. The white lines had to stay fine, she said, or the whole band would clog like a drain. The woman laughed and said that was exactly what the client wanted, something that looked heavy from across a room.

Ruth took the knife and cut the second face again, leaving the crease where it was. When the stencil was done she held it up to the window, and the light came through the open mouth and landed on the bench in a small clean shape, the only white thing in the room that nobody had tidied.