Black and grey fine line tattoo of a vertical row of short horizontal strokes on the upper back, with the word imagine in script on the nape of the neck in the left photo.

Vertical tally-style lines on upper back

Fine line · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A diptych of two photographs of the same upper back and neck area, each showing a vertical tattoo of short horizontal strokes in a row, resembling tally or stitch marks. The left photo also shows the word imagine in cursive script on the nape of the neck. The linework is fine and black, with soft shading and no colour, against pale skin, and the crops keep the subject centred.

Fine line Lettering Back Neck Vertical line Tally marks Stitches Script Word Spine

Find an artist for this

Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom, The Bramley trees behind Hollin Farm have dropped half their crop onto the wet grass, and Mr Vell has given up pretending he can count them. So I've taken on the tally for the packing shed door, one stroke for every crate that leaves the yard, and I've had to stand on the upturned cider vat to reach the top rows.

Keep reading

You'd laugh at the state of it. Forty-one strokes on Monday, then Dad's cough turned into a fever and the pickers went short, and I stitched the sacks shut with his old sailmaker's thread so nothing spilled down the lane. Every fifth stroke I cross through, the way you taught me on the back of the feed receipts, though it's the uncrossed ones I keep looking at.

Mrs Ashdown came up from the village with a basket of windfalls and asked whether the post had come. It hadn't. She stood by the door while she waited, her lips moving over the marks, and said it was a sum that never comes out even. I told her it did if you kept going.

Your last card said to imagine the orchard in blossom, so I have, every night this week. Come home at the end of September when the last crate is loaded, and I'll show you the door. I've left a clean strip of wood at the bottom of the column for whichever of us is brave enough to make the next mark.