Black linework tree with exposed roots tattooed on an upper arm, beside a rolled sleeve of a white t-shirt.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Tree and roots on an upper arm

Botanical · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A close crop of a person wearing a white t-shirt with a printed quote and small hand-drawn doodles, with denim shorts and a bag strap visible. A tattoo of a tree with spreading roots sits on the upper arm, drawn in thin black lines with light shading. The photograph is taken outdoors in bright daylight against a blurred green background.

Botanical Fine line Upper arm Tree Root T-shirt Denim

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Ines,

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The council finally let me dig under Hallam Street, so I have spent three weeks on my knees in a trench with a trowel and a jam jar of sandwiches. You will laugh, but the oak at the bottom of number twelve has roots that run under the pavement all the way to the church wall, forty paces off. Nobody planted them there. The tree is older than the terrace, older than the lamp post, older than the rumour about the bakery.

Yesterday I followed one root with my fingers for nearly an hour. It thins to the width of a bootlace, then splits into threads finer than cotton, and every fork looks deliberate. Mrs Okonedo from number ten brought us tea and said the old men used to claim the tree was listening. I told her roots are mostly busy drinking. She said that was what she meant.

I have drawn the whole network on squared paper, and it looks less like a map than a hand held open, fingers spread against the dark soil. Tomorrow the spade men arrive and I will have to say where it is safe to cut. I have not yet worked out how to write that sentence.

Do come up at the weekend. Bring the good pencils. I want you to see the bit by the drain where the smallest root goes down and does not stop.

Love, Tom