Black tribal-style lizard tattoo design with swirling linework on a plain white background, shown without any body placement.

Tribal-style lizard design

Traditional · Black and grey · Flash

A black line drawing of a stylised lizard with a long curling tail, spiral details on the body and legs, and a spiral eye area on the head. The linework is bold, with tapered strokes and curls, and small dots sit near the back and legs. The image is a single flat design on a white background with no colour or shading.

Traditional Lizard Spiral Tribal Swirl

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Nell had counted the geckos on the ballroom wall every Saturday since the spring, and there were always eleven, though never the same eleven. They lived in the gaps behind the gilt mirrors of the Palais on Harbour Row, where the plaster had cracked into curls that looked, from the balcony, like someone had gone over the walls with a fast pen. The band packed up at midnight. The old doorman swept the sprung floor with a broom older than himself, and the lizards came down to lick up spilt sugar from the boards.

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Tonight the lamps were low and the last waltz had faded. Nell crouched by the bandstand, where the brass section had left a bent cornet case and a scatter of sheet music. One lizard, bigger than the rest, with a tail that curled like a question mark, watched her from the skirting. Its spiral eye caught the light when she tilted the lamp.

She had come back for her mother's ring, which had slipped through a gap in the floorboards during the foxtrot. Her mother had sung along to every number that night, dancing with a soldier who smelled of tobacco and rain. Nell worked the loose board up with a butter knife. Beneath it lay dust, a hairpin, three buttons, and the ring, snagged on a nail.

She sat back on her heels and laughed quietly, because the gecko had crept closer and was studying her as though she were the one who had come in late. She slipped the ring onto her finger. The lizard, unhurried, slid back into its curl of cracked plaster, as if it had only been waiting for the music to stop.