Black and grey dotwork tattoo of a sun with a face, a crescent moon and a lotus flower on the outer thigh of a bare leg.

Sun, moon and lotus on a thigh

Dotwork · Thigh · Black and grey · Photo

A tattoo of a sun with a face sits over a crescent moon, with a lotus flower and dangling dot motifs above it on the thigh. The lotus and the sun's rays are built from stippled dots and fine lines, with light shading across the petals and moon. The design is shown in black and grey ink against smooth skin, with a striped garment covering the lower part of the frame.

Dotwork Botanical Thigh Sun Moon Celestial Dot

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The sun had not risen over Caddon Wick for three mornings, and the bakers had started burning their loaves out of sheer nerves. Nell Tarrant, who kept the lamps along Ferrier Bridge, climbed the iron stair of the water tower at midnight with a tin of oil and a bad temper, because the moon had asked her to. The moon was sitting on the parapet when she arrived, one silver hand pressed to its cheek, looking like someone who had lost an argument with a kettle.

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"He's gone down to the lotus pond," the moon said. "Under the old mill. He went to cool his face and the reeds closed over him." Nell asked why nobody had simply lit a fire. "Because fire is what people do when they've forgotten him." She tucked the oil under her arm and followed the moon down the drainpipe, past the sleeping gulls and the shuttered chandler's, until the mill wheel loomed black above the water.

The pond lay still beneath it, its lotus flowers shut tight as fists, each bud ringed with dew that caught her lantern. Between two lily pads something glowed the colour of old brass. The sun lay there with his rays folded flat against his cheeks, eyes half closed, and his face was not angry, only tired. Nell knelt on the wet stones and spoke to him the way she spoke to the bridge cats. "You've been up a long time."

One of his eyes opened. "Every morning somebody asks me to come up. Nobody ever asks whether I'd like to stay down." Nell considered this, then poured oil into her lamp, struck the flint, and held the small flame low over the water. "Then rest. I'll sit with you, and when you're ready the bells can go." The moon lowered itself onto the stones beside her, dimmer than before. When the first grey crept over the chimneys, the sun rose out of the pond slow as an unfolding petal, and Caddon Wick's bells rang late but true. Nell walked home with wet hems and the lamp still warm in her hand.