Black tribal scorpion tattoo on the ankle and upper foot of a person wearing a black flip-flop, on a wooden deck.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Tribal scorpion on an ankle

Blackwork · Ankle · Black and grey · Photo

A bold black tribal scorpion with a curled tail and spiked legs sits on the ankle and top of the foot. The solid black linework and fill are sharp and high contrast against the skin. A black flip-flop with a white patterned strap and the toes visible sit below it on a grey wooden deck.

Blackwork Ankle Scorpion Tribal Foot

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The scorpion came out from under the water tank at dusk, just as Hamid had sworn it would, and the goats fell silent as though someone had shut a door on them. Nadia kept her back against the cool cistern wall and held her cup of mint tea until it went lukewarm. Her grandmother had taught her that a sting only follows a hand that reaches, so she reached for nothing.

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The creature moved sideways across the warm concrete toward the coiled hose, its tail lifted high and curled over its back, black as a burnt match. Its legs ticked faintly on the stone. Nadia thought of her cousins who had gone to the coast and come home with ink on their ankles, insisting the designs brought luck. Her grandmother would have laughed. A tail held like that, she used to say, is a question the animal asks before it gives its answer.

Hamid's torch swung across the step and caught the scorpion just as it slipped beneath a rubber sandal left by the door. He crouched, eager, reaching for a stone. Nadia got there first. She tipped the water jug slowly, letting a thin line run across the concrete toward the sandal, and the scorpion scrambled out pale and hurried, climbing the strap as if it were a rope out of a well. She herded it onto a clay lid with a folded leaf and carried it to the edge of the wadi, where she tipped it into the dark. Hamid asked why she hadn't killed it. Because it had asked her a question, she said, and she had been able to answer.

In the morning the sandal's strap bore a faint line of tracks in the dust, small crooked marks like handwriting. Hamid tried to read them aloud and gave up. Nadia left them alone, and for days the wind did not quite manage to take them away.