Black stencil design of two stylised koi fish curving around a circle with three dots between them, in a Japanese style.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Two koi fish in a circle stencil

Japanese · Black and grey · Flash

Two stylised koi fish, one above the other, curve around a circular form with their heads meeting in the centre. Their bodies and fins are filled with solid black shapes and detailed scale patterns, with three dots sitting between them. The design is rendered in solid black on a white background with bold, flowing linework and no shading.

Japanese Koi Fish Yin yang Circle Scale Dot

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Mind the guy ropes, and don't lean on the tank, the glass has been cracked since Skegness. Right, gather round, and you there, put that toffee apple down. This is the one I only tell when the generator's running.

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Two koi lived in a barrel behind the waltzer, black as wet tar, and the boy who fed them called them Dorrit and Sal after two girls in a book he'd never finished. Every morning they swam the same ring round the barrel, nose to tail, and every morning neither would let the other reach the surface first for the crust of bread. The showman said they were fighting. The boy said they were courting. The bread went soggy and the water grew green at the edges, and still they went round.

One October the fair folded for winter and the barrel was tipped into the field ditch. The water poured out in one long silver sheet and there was nothing left to circle. Dorrit lay on the frosted grass with her fins spread flat, and Sal came flapping down in the mud beside her, and for the first time in their lives neither had anything to chase. The boy came back at dawn with his pockets full of white pebbles, the ones he'd been dropping in the barrel all summer to count the days. He pressed three of them into the mud between their heads, one for each season they had gone round together, and he went home for his tea.

So, a koi in a circle is never really on its own, whatever the showman tells you. Mind the step on your way out. Tobias tips his cap, the generator coughs back into life, and somewhere behind the dodgems a small boy is counting his stones into his pocket.