Colour tattoo of a purple lotus bloom with two buds and green curling vines on the upper arm and shoulder.

Purple lotus and green vine on an upper arm

Botanical · Upper arm · Colour · Photo

A purple lotus flower with two closed buds sits on a curling green vine that wraps across the upper arm toward the shoulder. The petals are shaded from deep violet to lighter lilac, with soft gradient blending, while the stems and leaves use smooth green lines and fills. The subject fills the left and centre of the frame against a dark top and blurred background.

Botanical Upper arm Shoulder Lotus Flower Bud Vine Leaf

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The village hall smelled of floor polish and the urn that had been boiling since seven. Dee Mottram had spent the afternoon writing name badges, and now she stood by the trestle table watching people squint at each other's faces, trying to find the thirteen-year-old underneath. Nobody recognised Gavin Pike until he mentioned the greenhouse.

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"The lotus," he said, turning a plastic cup in his fingers. "Harkness's lotus. Did anyone ever see it open?" Nobody had. In the sixth form biology greenhouse a tub of murky water had held one stubborn plant that sent up leaves, then buds, two shut tight and one that never seemed to decide. Mr Harkness claimed it opened only at dawn for someone who had been kind to it. Dee had watered it every morning for a year, before the school sold the greenhouse for flats.

Gavin took a photograph from his wallet, creased soft at the corners. It showed a purple bloom on a curling green stem, lilac at the edges, deep violet at the heart. "Found it at a garden centre in Leeds. Bought the bulb without knowing why." Dee held the picture close and her thumb moved over the petals the way she had once tested a bud for softness. Someone called out that the raffle was starting.

On the bus home she kept her handbag on her knees. Inside, wrapped in a paper napkin, was the small pale nub Gavin had pressed into her hand at the door. When she got in she unwrapped it and found it had split along one seam, a sliver of violet showing. She set it on the windowsill above the sink, and by morning the sliver had widened, and she decided not to mention it to anyone.