Black and grey realism tattoo of a seated Buddha with a lotus and a halo on the upper arm and shoulder, with floral ornament and script on the forearm.

Seated Buddha and lotus sleeve on an arm

Realism · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A seated Buddha with a lotus base and a patterned halo fills the upper arm and shoulder, with shaded robes and fine outlines. Floral ornament and cursive script continue down the forearm, shaded with dotted and smooth grey tones. The photograph is in greyscale, showing a man in a dark sleeveless top with the arm raised toward the right of the frame.

Realism Lettering Upper arm Shoulder Forearm Buddha Lotus Halo Floral ornament Script

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

By three in the morning the corridor lights on Ward 14 have dropped to their amber setting, and you have stopped hearing the drip alarms unless they are your own. Mrs Okafor's pump chirps from bay two. You answer it with your hip, carrying a cup of tea gone lukewarm, and the sketch your sister drew for you hangs crooked above the sluice sink: a seated figure on a lotus, hands folded, a halo of flames and leaves. Pencil only, she'd said. Colour later, if you ever stop long enough to choose one.

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The night sister, Bev, comes in with the drug book under her arm and a packet of custard creams. She reads the sketch upside down. "Looks like he's waiting for a bus," she says. You tell her it's the opposite, that he is waiting for nothing at all, which is the hardest thing to manage on a ward where every light blinks for someone. Bev says her husband once sat still for twenty minutes in a church in Pontefract and came out wanting a fag.

At four a boy in bay three starts crying for his mum, who went home at nine because she had to. You sit on the edge of his bed and copy the breathing you were taught on a course in a room with bad carpet. In, hold, let go. The lotus in your head opens slowly, petal by petal, the way the monitor line smooths when he finally sleeps.

At handover you pin the sketch straight again. Bev asks whether you meant to leave it crooked. You say no, but you leave it anyway, and by seven the light beyond the window is the colour of weak milk, and someone from the day shift has already moved it.