Black fine line geometric tattoos on the side of the ribs: a triangle with tally marks, a circle with an arrow, and a square enclosing a circle and a shaded triangle.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Triangle, circle and square geometric tattoos on ribs

Fine line · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

Three stacked geometric tattoos sit on the side of a torso: an outlined triangle with tally-like marks on each side, a circle with a small arrowhead, and a square enclosing a circle with a shaded triangle inside. The linework is thin and even, and the inner triangle uses a soft black-to-grey gradient. The skin is pale and the background is plain and light, with a dark strap crossing the right side of the frame.

Fine line Geometric Ribs Triangle Circle Square Arrow Tally marks Geometric shape

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The customs officer at Harwich wanted to know what the marks meant, and I told him they were a count. Three strokes on each side of the triangle, nine in all, one for every crossing I had made since the lorry tyres first hissed over the border at Calais. He squinted at my passport, then at the drawing I had tucked behind it, a copy I had made on squared paper the night before we sailed.

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The circle was the hard part to draw. Ruth, who taught me the trade of surveying before the firm let her go, always said a circle is only a line that has forgotten where it started. So I put the small arrowhead on it and let it run round forever, back to the place where it began. We had walked that loop for eleven years, between the survey office in Leeds and the mapping house in Ghent, arguing over the same contour lines.

The square held the rest. I had shaded the triangle inside the circle from black at its base to nothing at its point, because that is how the light fell on the ferry rail when the fog lifted off the Stour. Everything we had measured was supposed to fit inside something larger, and the square was the frame we were told to trust.

The officer handed the paper back. He did not ask about the arrow. I kept the drawing folded in my coat, and when the ferry turned into the grey harbour I counted the strokes once more, under my breath, the way you check a bearing before you commit to it.