Enlarged with AI from a smaller original
Swirling tree of life line drawing
Botanical · Black and grey · Flash
A symmetrical tree of life drawn in uniform black outlines on white, with branches that end in leaves and a trunk filled with spiral and scroll details. The roots curl outward at the base, giving the design an open, balanced composition. It is a flat, graphic illustration with no shading or colour.
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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction
Dear Tomas, the ash on the tip has finally put out leaves, though the spoil is as grey as ever and Mrs Pryce says it is a stubborn thing that will grow out of a coal heap if it is given half a chance. I have been sitting under it with the flask you left on the step, watching the men come up the lane with their lamps still lit.
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The men say the roots go down further than the shaft. Your uncle swore he felt them knocking on the wall at the forty-yard level, a sort of tapping like a friend wanting in. I told him that was the pipes. He laughed at me the way you used to, all teeth and no argument.
Yesterday I walked up to the old drift and found the spirals again, the ones you scratched into the bark when you were nine, going round and round until the knife slipped. They have grown with the tree. The curls have pulled wide the way the roots do when they reach for water, and the trunk has swollen around your initials until the letters are nearly lost in the wood.
The colliery whistle goes at six now, not seven, so I will finish before the shift changes. Come up on Sunday and bring your boots. Bring the knife too. We will cut your daughter's name beside yours, low down where the roots begin, where nobody will think to look. Your loving mother, Eirlys.
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