Small black fine line and dotwork tattoo of a sun, crescent moon and eye with lashes on the upper arm.

Sun, moon and eye on an upper arm

Fine line · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A small tattoo shows a dotted sun above a crescent moon, with an eye below it that has lash lines and a short vertical trail of three dots underneath. The outlines are fine and even, and the dotwork stippling forms a halo around the sun. The tattoo is in black ink on pale skin, centred against a plain background with a dark garment at the edge of the frame.

Fine line Dotwork Upper arm Sun Moon Eye Dot

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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

Sit down, sit, the kettle isn't finished with us yet. You want to know why the road past Kharsa runs dark for forty miles? My grandmother told it with her palm flat on the table, as if the story might blow away otherwise. There was a lamplighter called Idris who worked the old caravan road, lighting the wells and waymarks each dusk so the camels would not wander off into the salt.

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One summer the sun and the moon quarrelled over who should keep the road by night. The sun said it had given the day its heat and was owed a rest in the cool. The moon said it had given the night its only light and would not be dismissed. They shouted until the sand rose in columns and the wells went cloudy. Idris, tired of their noise, climbed to the highest well and told them both to sit down. So they did, the sun above and the moon beneath, neither willing to come a hand's width closer.

They could not agree on the hours between dusk and dawn, when neither was sure whose duty they were. So Idris pressed an eye into the flat stone at the well with his thumb, and it opened slowly and blinked once, and the dust settled on the road. From its lashes fell three bright dots, which ran off down the track like a string of beads, and that is how the lorry drivers find the turning now, by counting the dots.

Whether you believe it is your business. The dots are still there if you have the eyes for them, and nobody I know has ever seen that eye close. Drink your tea before it goes cold, and mind the last dot. It is always the one that has moved.