Small black fine line tattoo of a set of scales on the upper back near the shoulder, with a purple top and a brick wall behind.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Scales of justice on upper back

Fine line · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A close photograph of a small tattoo of a set of balanced scales, drawn with a simple outline and a central post and base, on the upper back near the shoulder blade. The linework is thin and even with little or no shading, and the ink reads as dark blue-black against the skin. The subject is framed from behind with a purple top at the left edge and a blurred brick wall in the background.

Fine line Back Scale Symbol

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The weighing stalls at Carrow Street had been shut since the council took the lease, but Mrs Adeyemi still set her brass scales out under the awning every Thursday, rain or no rain. Nobody bought anything. Pigeons came to look. Dev, who sold phone chargers two pitches down, had started leaving her a cup of tea on the edge of the table without a word, and she had started drinking it without a word, which seemed to suit them both.

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The morning the men from the council came with their clipboards, she set the pan on the left side with a single sugared doughnut and waited. The lead man, a tall fellow in a grey anorak, read the notice aloud about the forfeited stock and the bylaws, then glanced at the scales and frowned at the doughnut. "What's that for?"

"Evidence," she said. She slid a folded paper into the right pan, a copy of the lease with the clause about the market's first hundred years circled in red biro. The pans hung level for a long moment. Rain ran off the awning in a single silver rope. Then the paper dipped, slowly, and the doughnut rose.

The clipboard man laughed, then stopped, because Dev had already stepped out from behind his stall and was holding up a sheet of his own, printed at the library that morning. The pans tipped again. Nobody spoke. The rain kept falling on the brick and the pigeons went back to their business, and when the men finally walked off towards the high street, Mrs Adeyemi wiped the brass with the hem of her cardigan and poured Dev another cup of tea.