Black and grey shaded lotus flower tattoo with a long stem on the upper back, seen from behind.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Shaded lotus flower on upper back

Botanical · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A lotus flower with several layered petals and a long curving stem is tattooed on the upper back of a person photographed from behind. The petals are rendered in smooth grey gradients with darker shadows, and the stem tapers downward. The flower is centred in the frame, with warm lighting and skin tones surrounding it.

Botanical Back Lotus Flower Petal Stem Leaf

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The officer at the Kessel Bridge crossing wants to know what is in the tin, and you tell him the truth, which is seeds. He tips the lid with a gloved thumb and looks at the grey pebbles inside, each one no bigger than a lentil and hard as old teeth. Lotus, you say. He asks whether they are for eating. You tell him they are for waiting.

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Your grandmother kept them in the pocket of her coat for thirty years, through two winters without heating and one flood that took the pond at the bottom of her garden. She told you a lotus seed can sleep for centuries in dry mud and still open when the water comes back. You never believed her until you had to carry the tin across a line on a map that did not exist when she was young.

The officer turns the tin over in his hands for longer than the procedure requires. He says his mother had a pond too, behind a house that no longer belongs to his family, and that she used to throw bread crumbs at the frogs and swear at them when they ignored her. He stamps your form. He does not stamp the tin. He closes the lid, presses the tape down along its edge with his thumb, and slides it back across the counter toward you.

In April a postcard arrives with no return address, only a photograph of a chipped saucer on a windowsill. Rainwater stands in it. Beside it, a single green stalk leans toward the glass, and at its tip a folded grey bud is already lifting out of the mud.