Red lotus motif with a curling stem and a ring of dots on a dark grey area of the upper arm, in a botanical style.

Red lotus on a grey upper arm

Botanical · Upper arm · Mixed · Photo

A red lotus flower with a curling stem and leaves sits on a large dark grey area of the upper arm, with a ring of small dots above the bloom. The red sections have a textured, slightly glossy finish and appear raised or sunken against the grey, which fills the background of the design. Other tattoo work is partly visible along the edge of the arm, and the frame is tightly cropped on the arm.

Botanical Upper arm Lotus Flower Stem Dot Swirl Leaves

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The keeper's daughter went out to the grey rock below Skerry Hollin every evening with a pot of red ochre and a bone brush. Nothing on that stone had ever grown a flower, and her father said the sea would have it back by morning. She said the sea could have it if it wanted, but it would have to ask politely.

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That winter the oil was short and the great lamp smoked. Ewan Gorrie, who rowed the mail across to the mainland, could see the red flower from two miles out, though he could not say what it was a sign of. Morag traced the stem round in a slow curl so that boats coming in from the north could find the cove by its turn, and she laid a ring of small dots above the bloom to mark the rocks that lay under the swell.

In the second week of November a storm came in from the west and the lamp went dark at midnight. Four boats were still out. Morag climbed the tower with her pot, mixed the ochre with lamp oil, and smeared it over the glass panes until the beam came through red and broken into a ring of points. The men on the water counted the points the way they counted gulls, and steered by the curl.

All four boats came home. In spring her father painted the rock grey again, and each autumn Morag laid the red back on. Nobody on the island ever asked her why she bothered. The fishermen simply kept a bit of red in their lamps after that, and said the sea seemed to listen to that colour more than to the dark.