Black fine line tattoo of a tree with curling branches and swirled roots on the side of the ribs.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Swirling tree tattoo on the ribs

Fine line · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

A black tattoo of a tree shows a thick trunk with long, curling branches that spread across the upper body and roots that sweep down toward the hip. The linework is fine and flowing, with many spiral curls, and the trunk is filled in with solid black ink. The tree fills most of the frame against plain skin, with a partly visible doorway and a second faded tattoo at the far left edge.

Fine line Botanical Ribs Tree Branches Root Swirl Spiral

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tomas,

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The snow closed the Hollin road on Tuesday and it has not reopened, so I am writing this at the kitchen table of the Crook and Lantern with the stove ticking behind me. Mr Abernethy says the lane will be clear by Friday if the wind drops. He has said that every day since the first flake, and yet he keeps buying more coal, so I have stopped believing him and started believing the tree.

The tree is the old ash in the yard, the one the landlord's father would not let anyone fell. Its trunk is split at the height of a man's chest and the bark has gone the colour of wet slate. In the storm its branches look like a hand of pen-strokes someone has flicked across the sky, curl after curl, each one ending in a little hook as if it means to catch something. I counted forty-one hooks before the light went. Its roots come up through the cellar wall in the north corner, and on the cellar stairs I can hear them creak like rope taking weight.

Last night I went down with the lamp to fetch a jar of damsons and found the flagstones dry and the wall warm under my palm, which is not right in a house built against snow. I put my ear to the stone and heard water moving, slow and patient, the way sap must move through a tree that has decided to stay. I left the damsons where they were. Some things in a village want to be left to finish their business.

I shall be home when the road opens. Keep the kettle on for me, and tell Mother the ash is still standing, though I suspect it has been standing much longer than any of us.

Yours, Iris