Black ink stag head with antlers above a fine-lined triangle design on the back of a hand, in a geometric blackwork style.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Stag and triangles on the back of a hand

Geometric · Hand · Black and grey · Photo

A black stag head with branching antlers sits on the back of a hand, with its neck fading into a solid dark base. Below it, a row of interlocking fine-lined triangles forms a geometric figure. The image is entirely black ink against pale skin, shot from above on a grey concrete floor.

Geometric Blackwork Hand Stag Antler Triangle Geometric shape Deer

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom, the stag came down off Carn Dubh again this morning and stood on the down platform at Glenaldie as if it had bought a ticket. Nobody moved for a full minute. The 7.12 sighed at the buffers and the driver leaned out with his cap in his hand, the way you'd greet a bishop. I was in the box with the lever frame cold under my palm, so I watched the whole business through the glass, the antlers branching up and out like the arms of a signal that has just been pulled off.

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Its neck runs down into the dark as though it has been dipped in the ink pot, which is how I'd describe it to you if you ever learned to draw. Mrs Lacey at the post office swears it's the same beast that stood by the water tank in March, so I've started a tally in the back of the train register: three sightings, two near misses, and a small triangle drawn in the margin each time. Three triangles, one inside the next, sharp as the points on a tie pin. Ask me what they mean and I'll say the sidings, because the sidings make a triangle when you look at the plan from above.

On Tuesday the stag stepped between the points at the north end and the whole station went still. I threw the crossover by hand, which I'm not supposed to do, and it turned its head towards me as slowly as a semaphore dropping. Then it walked back up the bank into the birches and was gone, leaving one hoofprint in the frost on the ballast like a full stop.

Come up at the end of the month. The rut will have started, and the guard says the timetable runs for nobody but deer. Bring the good pencils, and don't tell Dad I've stopped sending him the timetable.