Fine gold line drawing of a vertical totem design stacking lotus flowers, a central mandala and geometric diamonds, shown on a cream background.

Stacked lotus and mandala totem design

Fine line · Colour · Flash

A vertical totem of five stacked motifs: two teardrop-shaped lotus buds at the top and bottom, two lotus flowers in the middle, and a central circular mandala, each set within thin geometric diamond and circle frames with small dots at the vertices. The linework is fine and even, with dotted curves and detailed petal and bead patterns, and the design is drawn in a single muted gold ink on a cream background. The composition is symmetrical and centred, with the motifs spaced evenly down the page.

Fine line Geometric Lotus Mandala Geometric line Dot Petal Diamond

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom, The lift in Hadley House has been out since Tuesday, so I have been climbing to the eleventh floor twice a day with the post, and my knees have opinions about it. Mrs Okafor on seven sent down a sponge cake to thank me for wheeling her bins up the ramp. I told her it was no trouble, then ate the corner of it on her step before I'd gone two floors.

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You won't recognise the stairwell now. Mr Kowalczyk from the fifth floor spent the whole of February up a stepladder with a sign-writer's brush and a tin of gold ink, and he has painted five panels up the wall, one above the next. A lotus bud sits by the roof hatch, then a open lotus, then a great round mandala at the middle landing where the window catches it, then another lotus, then a bud down by the bins. He used a bit of string for the circles and a patience nobody else in this building has. The council wanted it painted over by Easter. The residents wrote a petition, and I signed it twice, once for each of my knees.

The inspector came on Thursday. He stood on the middle landing for a long while without saying a word, and then he asked who had drawn the circles so true. Mr Kowalczyk said string, and patience. The inspector looked at the wall a bit more, wrote something on his clipboard, and said that it could stay until somebody complained, which in this block means it could stay for ever.

Last night I came up with the shopping as the sun went low through that window. The gold went warm on the wall, and I could have sworn the bottom bud had opened a fraction, the way they do in the morning. Come up when you visit. Mind the fourth step, it's loose. Love, Mum