Colour tattoo on a thigh of a pocket watch on a gold chain, a red heart and curling script reading Have I gone mad, in a lettering and neo-traditional style.

Alice quote and pocket watch on a thigh

Lettering · Thigh · Mixed · Photo

The design combines script lettering, quoted as "Have I gone mad? I'm afraid so. You're entirely bonkers. But I'll tell you a secret. All the best people are", with a pocket watch on a gold chain, a red heart and small black playing card suit shapes. The script is in clean black linework with soft shading, while the watch has gold and grey tones and the heart is solid red. The composition runs diagonally across the skin, with the watch at lower left and the text stacked above it.

Lettering Neo-trad Thigh Pocket watch Chain Heart Script Quote Clock

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Tuesday, gone midnight. Rain on the skylight of the back office in Hockley, and the gas fire ticking like it has an opinion about me. A man came in at closing with a pocket watch on a gold chain and would not take a sovereign for it. He wanted a loan against the time, he said, not the metal. I told him we did not lend on hours. He smiled as though I had made a joke and left the watch on the counter face up.

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The hands run backwards when you are not looking. I checked it three times under the lamp, and each time it had crept a little further toward the hour I was born. Under the glass someone had scratched a tiny spade, then a club, a diamond, a heart, the way a card sharp marks a deck. Mrs Abernethy in the flat above says the Hockley cardsharps used to pay their debts in clocks. I thought she was bonkers until tonight.

I went out at one into streets so wet the lamps doubled themselves. Every doorway had a card pinned to it: all the best people are. I counted eleven before I reached the canal. At the bridge the watch began to tick very loudly, and the water below held a second moon that was not quite the right colour.

I have written this down so that someone sensible can find it. Have I gone mad? Possibly. But the watch is in the safe, and I have not once opened the safe since. The clock in the office now says twelve, and it has said twelve since I started writing.