Black and grey geometric tattoo of circles, triangles and arrows running vertically down the upper back, in a Geometric style.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Vertical geometric tattoo on upper back

Geometric · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A black and white photograph of a vertical stack of geometric motifs on the upper back, near the base of the neck. The design includes a small arrow at the top, linked circles, a filled triangle, a diamond shape and downward-pointing arrows along a central line. The linework is crisp and mostly solid black with some fine outlines, set against soft grey skin and plain background.

Geometric Back Circle Triangle Arrow Diamond Line Geometric shape

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell,

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Mr Halloran has finally let me hold the theodolite, though he still won't let me near the drawing board. We spent Tuesday on the top of Crow Fell, where the old survey men cut their marks into the trig pillar. You would laugh at the state of me. My stockings are ruined and there are bramble scratches up both wrists, but I found the thing you asked about.

At the top is a small arrow pointing north, and beneath it two rings that overlap like a pair of bangles. Then a solid triangle, then a diamond with its middle left hollow, and below that three arrows stacked point to point, all aiming at the ground. Halloran says they are not decoration. Each is a bearing taken before the war, a line from one station to the next, so a man could find his way back to the same square yard of heather when the fog came down.

He showed me how the lines cross. Put a straw on the diamond and sight it through the rings and the arrows all lead to the spring below the wall, the one Dad used to take us to when we were small and the sheep had trodden the path to mud. I don't think the surveyors knew about the spring. I think they only needed somewhere to stand.

I have copied the whole stack into my field book, arrows and all. When I get back on Friday I'll show you where we're standing, so you can see for yourself which way is home.