Black and grey world map tattoo with a compass rose on the inner forearm, with the hand open to the right.

World map and compass rose on a forearm

Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

The tattoo covers the forearm with a shaded map of the Americas, Europe and Africa, with fine latitude and longitude lines drawn across the skin. A large sixteen-point compass rose sits in the centre, with the letters W and E marking the directions on the map. The work is done in black and grey with soft gradients for depth, and the photograph shows the forearm and open hand against a dark green background.

Forearm World map Compass rose Continent Map Compass

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The snow had come in overnight and buried the gate, so you went out at first light with the lantern and your grandfather's brass compass, the one with the cracked glass and the needle that still swung true. Ned had said the ewes on the top field would be lost in a drift by morning if nobody counted them. You did not argue with Ned. In forty years you had never once beaten him at an argument, only at mending fences.

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The field was a blank sheet with no edges. You could not see the wall, so you set the bearing east and walked it, counting fence posts that rose from the white like the marks on a chart, each one a line you could hold onto. The wind came off the reservoir from the west, sharp as a knife, and you kept it on your left cheek the way Ned had taught you. Past the dead elm you heard a bleat, thin and cross, and found six ewes packed under the hawthorn, their breath rising in a grey cloud that hung and drifted over the hedge.

Coming back, the lantern guttered and nearly went out, and you stopped counting steps and trusted the needle instead. Ned's old world map still hung in the barn, pinned above the feed bins, its Americas gone the colour of weak tea. He used to trace the lines of latitude with his thumb and tell you the sea was only ever a long argument between the places it touched. You had thought him foolish then.

The gate was exactly where the needle said it would be, a black bar in the snow. You leaned on it, counted the ewes again, and found all six. Behind you your boot prints ran straight back to the barn, already softening at the edges, and the kitchen window glowed yellow where Ned had left the light on for you.