Red tree of life tattoo with swirling branches, a central oval and curled roots, centred on the upper back of a woman with dark hair.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Tree of life across an upper back

Botanical · Back · Colour · Photo

A single-colour red tree of life fills the centre of the upper back, with a thick trunk, a central oval shape where the branches meet, and branches that curl at the ends. The roots spread downward in a scalloped pattern, and the bold, solid lines read clearly against the skin. The photograph is taken from behind, with the subject's dark hair and a purple top with straps framing the design.

Botanical Back Tree of life Tree Branches Root Swirl

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell, the big wheel went over at Ashby last night and I didn't even mind, because Mr Fenwick finally let me into the back of the carousel workshop. You remember the old tree panel from the centre column, the one with the red paint gone chalky? He's been stripping it for the new owners in Hull. Under the seventh coat of varnish there was a red tree, bold as a stop sign, with a trunk thick as a man's forearm and branches that curl over at the tips like fiddleheads.

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The painter, a Mrs Adair from Leeds, left a gap where the branches cross. A clean oval, unpainted, about the size of a hen's egg. Fenwick reckons it was meant for a name. She'd promised to paint her boy's name there when he came home from France, and the paint never went on. He never came home. The panel went onto a horse, the horse went to a fair, and the fair kept turning.

I asked him whether we should fill it in before it goes north. He said no. He said the roots would always spread out in their scalloped edges over the sawdust, and that gap was the only honest thing on the whole machine.

Tonight I'm sleeping in the van behind the waltzer with the window open, and the generator hums like it's counting something. Come to Hull in June and I'll show you the oval. Bring a pencil in case you want to write something in it. Love, Tom