Black and grey dotwork tattoo of a teepee under a crescent moon with stars, cacti and a bull skull on the inner forearm, framed by fine geometric circles.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Teepee and desert scene on a forearm

Fine line · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A teepee sits at the centre of the design, with a crescent moon and scattered stars in its upper section and a desert landscape of cacti, mountains and a bull skull at its base. Fine outline linework is combined with stippled dotwork shading to give the mountains and sky depth. Thin geometric circles and lines overlap behind the teepee, and the design is rendered entirely in black and grey ink.

Fine line Dotwork Geometric Forearm Crescent moon Star Mountain Bull skull Desert Circle Geometric line

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Anwen,

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The moon came up over the car park last night like someone had cut it out of tin and pinned it to the sky, and I thought of you straight away, because you always said the desert was the only place you could see the stars properly. Forty-first floor, Hollins Court, and the lift has been broken since Tuesday, so I have been climbing the stairs with the shopping and counting landings out of spite. Mrs Okonedo on eleven says the council will fix it when the councillors stop arguing about the bins.

Your postcard came on Friday. The teepee with the bull skull under it, the cacti lined up like people waiting for a bus. I stuck it to the fridge beside the gas bill. Mum looked at it for a long time and said she'd never seen a tent that looked so much like it was keeping secrets. I told her it was a picture of a place where nobody needs a lift.

I went up to the roof on Saturday with the old binoculars from Dad's shed. The lights of the estate stretch right out to the ring road, orange and then white, and beyond them there is only dark where the reservoir sits. I tried to find the Plough and got lost somewhere around the aerial. Then I remembered you telling me to look for the gap between things, the place where the lines don't quite meet, and I swung the glasses down to the flats opposite and there it was: a window on the nineteenth floor, a lamp, someone at a table drawing circles with a compass.

Write back. Tell me what the mountains look like up close, and whether the moon really is that big out there, or whether it only looks big from the top of a building with nowhere else to look.

Love, Cerys