Black linework mandala tattoo with teal and purple watercolour splashes across the shoulder and upper arm.

Watercolour mandala on a shoulder

Geometric · Shoulder · Mixed · Photo

A large mandala with black linework forms a symmetrical floral and geometric design on the shoulder and upper arm. Soft teal, blue and purple washes bleed outward from the outline, with small dots and drips scattered around the edges. The photo is taken from the side, with the wearer's head and face outside the frame and a blue top in the foreground.

Geometric Shoulder Upper arm Mandala Floral pattern Watercolour splashes Dot

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The caretaker of the Lantern Ballroom swept the floor every Monday, and every Monday she found the same thing under the bench by the stage: a ring of wet ink drawn in the shape of a flower with a hundred petals, and a splash of colour that had not been there on Saturday. Her name was Ada Penrose and she did not believe in fairies, so she told the band to stop leaving their pots about.

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The band said it was not them. The fiddler blamed the lamplighter's boy, who painted when he was bored. The boy said he had only grey paint and showed her his tin. It was true. The teal and the violet came from somewhere else.

On the fourth Monday she waited behind the curtain with a bucket and a cold cup of tea. Near midnight a woman stepped out of the panelling with a brush in each hand and blue ink on her sleeves. She did not look at Ada. She knelt and began at the centre, drawing petals outward, and when she reached the edge she dipped the brush in water and let the colour run past the lines, like rain down a window, until the boards glowed teal and violet.

Ada stepped out and asked her why. The woman said the hall stood on the old mill pond, and the pond had wanted a flower on its floor for a hundred years. Then she rinsed the brushes in the bucket, stood, and was gone before the lamps went out. In the morning the floor was dry, and every dancer who crossed the ring that week found their feet light. Ada never swept that part again.