Black and grey fine line script name with a small footprint tattoo on the upper back beside the shoulder blade.

Script name and footprint on upper back

Fine line · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A close photograph of a small tattoo on the upper back, near the shoulder blade, shown in sepia tones. It pairs black cursive script lettering above a footprint with shaded fill and a few toes drawn as dots. The thin, clean linework sits on a plain background of skin and a blurred interior.

Fine line Lettering Back Footprint Script lettering Name Foot Toe

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

You rake the ring at midnight because nobody else will. The big top sags over the sawdust now, and only three of the lamps still work, so you go by feel more than sight. The trapeze rigging creaks above you like a ship that has forgotten the sea. Most nights the ring is a mess of hoofprints, boot scuffs and spilt popcorn, but there is one mark you have learned to expect near the centre pole: a small bare foot, toes spread wide, pressed deep as though someone stood there for a long time.

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Nobody in the company will admit to making it. The ringmaster says it is a dog, the strongman says it is the wind, and Mrs Okonedo, who has sewn every costume since Margate, says it is a ghost with good manners. You know it belongs to Tobi, the wardrobe man's boy, who is seven and has been sleeping under the spare tarpaulins since the spring. He writes his name in chalk on the ticket box every morning, letters looping like the old posters, and then rubs most of it off before anyone can tell him it is nice.

The last show is Saturday. The yard in Kent has already paid, and the lorries are booked for six. You sweep the whole ring clean, as the contract says, until the only thing left is the small print by the pole. You crouch beside it. It is no bigger than your own palm.

You leave it. You take the chalk stub from your coat pocket and write the name next to the toes, slow and careful, the way he does. When the lorries pull out at dawn, the sawdust lies smooth everywhere except there, where a boy's name is waiting for the next town to read it.