Black and grey tattoo of a shaded rose wrapped in ribbon bands, with the word ONE on one band, on skin.

Shaded rose with ribbon bands

Black and grey · Photo

A close view of a large rose drawn with raised, shaded petals and wrapped in curling ribbon bands. The bands carry small dot and dash patterns and the word ONE, and the outer edges show further partial lettering. The work uses black linework with grey shading on a warm skin tone, and the tight crop fills the frame with the design.

Rose Ribbon Banner Text

Find an artist for this

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

By three the ward has its own weather, and you learn it the way you learn a pulse, by counting. The drip pump in bay four clicks every forty seconds. The sluice fridge hums one flat note underneath everything. Your hands smell of hand gel and the cheap orange soap Maureen swears by, and you are the only one awake who has noticed that the florist's rose on the day room table has started dropping petals onto the lino.

Keep reading

Bed nine's monitor sends its own messages. Mr Okafor's alarm is the old kind, a single tone that Dev says his grandfather would have called a dash, but Mrs Hadley's is a patient rhythm of short and long that nobody on the rota has bothered to learn. You learned it because your nan sent you Morse codes on a biscuit tin lid when you were small. When the screen blinks dot, dash, dot, you tap twice on the bed rail, and after a while, somewhere behind the curtain, a knuckle taps back.

The florist's card is still tucked in the vase. It came with the roses on Tuesday, wrapped in a ribbon printed with little dots and dashes and a gold word you couldn't read at first in the poor light. Tonight you finally do. ONE, it says, once around the stem and again at the edge, as if someone wanted it said twice.

At six the porters arrive with their squeaking trolleys and the light turns the colour of weak tea. You write your handover in blue biro, bed by bed, and at the bottom of the sheet, under the last name, you add a single line for whoever comes on next: Mrs Hadley slept. One night done.