Black and grey tattoo of curling waves, swirling clouds and a stippled sun with rays, on the upper arm, in a linework style.

Waves and rising sun on an upper arm

Japanese · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

The tattoo shows rolling sea waves with curled crests in the foreground, swirling cloud forms above them, and a stippled sun with radiating lines on the right. The design is built from fine, dense single-needle linework, with shading created by dotted textures on the sun and the wave bodies. The image is a close crop of the upper arm against a plain light background, with a grey sleeve at the top.

Japanese Dotwork Upper arm Wave Sea Sun Cloud Ray Swirl

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The boat was already past the breakwater when Mairi noticed her brother had not come down to the slip. She could see the lamp still burning in the cottage window, its wick turned low the way Callum left it when he meant to be home before the tide. Behind her the water lay grey and flat as slate, but ahead the swell had begun to lift, long and patient, rolling in from the west with the crests curling white at the top.

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Her father had always said the sea keeps a count of everyone who goes out on it, and that a boat is only ever lent. She had never believed him. She pulled the oars anyway, feathering the blades so they would not slap, and she kept her eyes off the clouds gathering over the headland, round and pale as fleeces left on a line to dry.

Past the second reef she saw the red hull of his boat lying on its side in the shallows, empty, and beyond it a dark head bobbing between two rocks. Callum had a rope round one wrist and his other hand clamped on a float older than both of them. He was shouting something she could not hear over the wind, and she understood from the set of his jaw that he was cross with her for coming, which meant he was alive, which meant the rest could be managed.

They got him into the boat between them, with the swell heaving them up and down like a hand that could not decide. Then the cloud split along the top of the ridge and the sun came up through the gap, throwing its rays out over the water in hard bright lines. Callum sat in the bow with his teeth chattering and his oar across his knees, and he watched the light lay a road across the swell all the way to the harbour as if he had ordered it himself.