Close view of a seated person with several small black fine line tattoos, including a palm tree on the thigh and a can and a triangle on the forearm and lower leg.

Small fine line tattoos on arms and legs

Fine line · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A seated person wearing a black top and sheer black skirt shows several small single-needle style tattoos in black ink across the forearm, thigh and lower leg. The subjects include a palm tree with a curved trunk on the thigh, a small can, a lighter, a triangle, short bars, a few short words and the numerals 2 and 3, all drawn with thin, even outlines and no shading. The warm, grainy film photograph is taken outdoors on a wooden deck, with the tattoos kept as the clear focus.

Fine line Forearm Thigh Calf Palm tree Triangle Bar Lettering Number Small tattoo

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Tuesday, the 14th. Wind from the south-west all afternoon, and the sea has come up over the slipway again. Mr Okonedo sent word that the pier kiosk stays shut until Friday, so I sat on the bench outside with the cash tin on my knee and counted it twice. Two pounds forty in coppers, a bent bus ticket, and one brass lighter that isn't mine.

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The lighter belonged to Ferdie. He left it on the counter on Saturday along with a can of Tizer he never opened, and a note saying he'd be back for the palm tree once the paint dried. He has painted the same palm on the shutter every summer since he was nine, and every winter the salt takes it back. I told him the sea was winning. He said the sea always wins, which is why you paint faster.

Ferdie came up the promenade at six with his hands in his pockets and a tin of green gloss under one arm. He didn't ask about the lighter. He just lit a cigarette off the end of the pier lamp, the way he does, and told me the numbers two and three were the bus he'd missed and the room he'd be sleeping in when he got back from Ostend. I didn't ask which of those was the lie.

We painted until the gulls gave up. The trunk curves the way it always does, like it's leaning to catch the last of the light. When he left I put the lighter in my pocket. I'll give it back on Friday, and if he doesn't come, I'll keep it anyway, because somebody has to remember which way the palm was leaning.