Black ink dotwork tattoo of stacked lotus and mandala motifs linked by a dotted line down the centre of a woman's back.

Vertical mandala and lotus tattoo down the spine

Dotwork · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A woman seen from behind with her hands raised to her head shows a vertical column of tattoos down the centre of her upper back. The column includes a small mandala, a lotus, a larger mandala and a small teardrop motif, joined by a fine dotted line. The work is in black ink with fine stippled linework and some shading, set against a plain grey background.

Dotwork Botanical Geometric Back Mandala Lotus Dotted line Spine Floral Ornament

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

You have been restoring the same mala for three nights now, because the thread keeps giving way at the same knot. The shop below Kirkgate Market is shut, the shutter down, and the only light up here is the lamp you dragged over from the bench. Outside, a bus sighs along the wet road and the rain makes its usual argument with the gutters.

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The string came in a tin with a note in pencil: "Mother's. Please don't change the order." Four charms, each a different size. A small mandala at the top, its petals cut so fine you need the loupe to see they are not quite identical. Then a lotus, then a larger mandala, a ring of dots like a clock face, and at the bottom a small drop-shaped charm, pointed downward as if it were trying to find the floor. Between each one runs a fine line of tiny beads, so close together they look like a pencilled dash.

You work the knot loose with a bradawl, slowly, the way the old man taught you before he retired to Scarborough. Under the lotus you find what has been bothering the thread all along: a bead of dark wood, drilled off-centre, that someone strung upside down. You turn it the right way round. The whole column settles, straight as a plumb line, and for a moment it hangs there in the lamplight as if it has finally been told where to stand.

You tie the last knot, dab it with clear varnish, and lay the teardrop in the tin's folded tissue. Then you write the note out again in your own neat hand, because the first one has the wrong date. Downstairs the first bus of the morning grinds past the market gate. You switch off the lamp and leave the string on the bench, all four charms the right way up.