Teal compass rose on a forearm
Neo-trad · Forearm · Mixed · Photo
A compass rose with an eight-point star sits at the centre, surrounded by a ring and black calligraphic swirls that include a few letters and a flourish at the top and bottom. The star and ring are filled with teal and turquoise shading, while the swirls and lettering are in solid black linework. The tattoo is shown on the forearm against a white cloth background.
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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction
The compass above Mum's stove has stopped again, so I've been telling the time by the church clock across the canal and steering by the lights of the gasworks. You'd laugh. Your sister, navigating by a gasworks.
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Mr Ashdown finished the engraving on the last Tuesday of October. He had drawn the rose on a sheet of blue-tinted card, eight points spiking out from a ring, and then let the lettering run wild around it, so the N and E and S and W were swallowed by loops until you had to squint to find them. He said the letters were in a hurry to get lost, and that a good chart should make a person work a little. I thought he was being clever. Now I think he was right.
Last night I sat in the back room of the shop with the lamp off and let the street light come in through the blind. The teal lay over the star like water over stones, and where the ring crossed the lettering the black went hard and certain. I found the north point at last, tucked under a curl that looked like a violin's scroll. It pointed straight at the canal, at the iron bridge, at the path you took the night you left. I think it always did.
I'm posting this tomorrow with the stamp you sent me. Come home when the boats are in. Bring the chart. We'll see if we can read it together.
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