Small black symbol tattoo on the wrist
Forearm · Black and grey · Photo
A small black ink symbol with a looped tail sits on the inner wrist, shown with the hand raised and fingers curled against a dark woven background. The linework is solid and fairly bold at this small size, with some uneven edges. The image is in black ink only, with a close crop that keeps the tattoo at the centre of the frame.
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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction
Dilys had been told the mark meant nothing, just a sign painter's flourish, but the morning the fair pulled onto the playing fields outside Cardiff she found it again, freshly wet on the back board of the waltzer. A hook with a curl at its foot, the same shape her Nan had pressed into the flour sacks of the old dodgem wagon before the damp got into her chest and took her off the road for good.
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Nobody on the fair spoke about the men who had gone before. Jack Stannard, who minded the generator and smelt permanently of diesel and Woodbines, told her the mark belonged to the lads who painted the rides, a way of signing a job no one would ever thank you for. He kept a tin of enamel under his bunk and let her borrow the thin brush if she washed it after.
She spent the grey afternoon inside the rim of the teacups, painting the curl where only a rider would find it, the way Nan used to do it. The rain came sideways off the river and the paint took its time, so she sat on an upturned crate with her knees up and listened to the Gallopers ticking as they cooled.
When the fair struck camp before dawn and the lorries nosed out through the gate, she stood on the verge and watched the last wagon roll past. On its rear panel the small hook caught the first of the light and held there, pointing back the way they had come.
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