Black fine line drawing of a large dahlia-style bloom inside a dotted circle, with buds and leaves, above the word VIRGO and the lines i worry, repeated three times.

Virgo flower line drawing with quote

Fine line · Black and grey · Flash

A black ink line drawing of a large spiked flower head with two buds, leaves and a bare stem, enclosed by a dotted circle and scattered with small dots. The linework is fine and hatched, with shading on the leaves and petals and no colour. The composition is centred on a white background, with the title VIRGO in small capitals and the lowercase text i worry. repeated beneath it.

Fine line Botanical Flower Bloom Bud Leaves Stem Dotted circle Text

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The chrysanthemum in the tin on the galley sill had four buds when we cleared Spurn, and I counted them the way I count everything: twice at the start of the watch, once more when the kettle boils. Three were open by the second night, their spiky rays bristling like a bad-tempered brush. The fourth stayed shut, tight as a fist, and I did not trust it.

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The galley runs on tallies. Eggs, onions, the tins of peaches the skipper pretends he doesn't like. I kept a slate by the stove and chalked every number on it, then wrote them again in pencil in case the chalk walked off in a swell. Bosun Tait called me the Clerk. Dennis, the deckhand, called me worse, but only where the gulls could hear.

On the third night the sea came over the bow in a long grey slap and the tin went skidding along the sill. I caught it one-handed, the way I'd catch a hot pan, and found a crack in the lip. Water had got into the soil. I spent the rest of the watch on my knees with a teaspoon, drying the earth and checking the slate between each spoonful. Eleven eggs, four onions, one tin of peaches short, which was the skipper's doing and not mine.

At dawn the fourth bud had opened. It had kept its own count, I suppose, and got there in its own time. I stood in the wet galley with the slate in one hand and the flower in the other, and for once I did not write a single thing down.