Small red bow tattoo with a black outline on the side of a finger, on a hand with red painted nails.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Small red bow tattoo on a finger

Hand · Colour · Photo

A small bow with a black outline and solid red fill sits on the side of a finger, with a red dot at its centre. The linework is bold and even, and the flat red ink is the only colour in the image. The hand is shown palm down against a plain, neutral background, with the tattoo placed near the centre of the frame.

Hand Bow Ribbon Finger

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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

You find the ribbon on the third stair of the Gull's Rest, where somebody dropped it in August and nobody has bothered to pick it up. It is red satin, gone soft and grey at the edges from a summer of salt air and wet sandals, and it is still tied in a neat bow round the brass key for room six. The kettle in the kitchen is shrieking. Outside, the gulls have already found the bins, and the whole house smells of vinegar and Sunlight soap.

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Mr Abernethy has had room six since Whitsun. Every evening he asks for his key, and every evening you hand it over with the ribbon still on, because he is the only guest who has ever said he likes it. He tells you it reminds him of a girl on the Margate pier in 1951 who wore one just like it, and he tells you slowly, stopping to cough, the way old men tell the things they have decided are true.

On his last morning the wind comes round from the west and the front door slams. You are at the top of the stairs with his case when he holds out his hand for the key. Instead you untie the bow, because the satin has worn thin and you think he should have it clean, and he looks at the little red knot in your palm for a long moment before shaking his head.

"Tie it back on," he says. "Hook six wants something to look at."

So you do. You make the bow the way Mrs Ivey taught you, loops even, the knot pulled tight, and you hang the key on its nail by the window where the sea shows through the glass. The next guest is due on Friday.