Close photo of a red cross above a bold black ornamental design on the inner forearm, in a tattoo with mixed colour.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Red cross and black ornamental design on a forearm

Forearm · Mixed · Photo

A red cross sits above a black ornamental motif made of looping curved lines and two angular, interlocking shapes below. The black lines are solid and bold, while the red cross is filled flat, giving a clear contrast. The tattoo is centred on a close crop of a forearm, with a blurred fabric edge on the left and a tattoo machine partly visible at the right.

Forearm Cross Ornament Loop Abstract

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The lorry came over Corran Pass at ten past four, three hours late, its tyres packed with grey slush. I had the stamp ready before the driver wound his window down, because eleven winters at that post had taught me that a tired man will tell you the truth if you do not keep him waiting. He handed over a folder of invoices and a bundle wrapped in oilcloth. Inside the oilcloth was a small bronze bell with a red ribbon knotted round its neck.

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"Not on the manifest," I said.

"Nothing is on the manifest," he said. "A woman in Dunmere asked me to carry it over and give it to whoever checked the back doors first. She said you'd know the mark." He tapped the cloth where something had been drawn in faded biro: a cross laid over a knot of loops, two hooked shapes beneath it like folded wings.

I knew it at once. My mother had drawn that same sign in the margins of her bakery ledger, beside the names of families who sent bread across the pass every Friday and needed a bed for the night if the weather turned. She had called it a gate. I had always thought it was decoration.

I turned the bell over. On its base, worn nearly smooth, was the same ornament, the loops and the hooked shapes and the cross. I stamped his papers, pressed a purple seal onto the oilcloth as well, and waved him through. Then I rang the bell once, very quietly, and it sounded like someone answering from the other side.