Biomechanical tattoo of gears, cogs and machinery on a forearm, shaded in grey with red and green accents.

Biomechanical gears sleeve on a forearm

Realism · Forearm · Mixed · Photo

The tattoo covers the forearm with large and small gears, cogs, springs and pipework that look like parts of a larger machine. The shading is detailed and smooth, with bright highlights giving the metal a three-dimensional look. Grey tones dominate, with touches of red, orange and green on some components and in the background.

Realism Forearm Gear Cog Pipe Biomechanical

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

You take the service stairs down to the plant room at ten past two, because the east lift has been stuck between the second and third floors since Tuesday and nobody upstairs will sign off a replacement. The corridor behind you is quiet, the drip stands half asleep in their bays, and the boiler keeps up its low note. The lift motor sits on its steel frame like something old that has been left out in the rain, its gear train bared and furred with grease.

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You open the inspection hatch and find what you expected. A governor spring has snapped clean, and a pin in the big bronze drive wheel has sheared to a grey stub. The switchboard calls down on the intercom. Ruth, the night sister, wants to know if the lift is coming, because bay six has a woman who has been waiting with a bag packed since midnight. You tell her ten minutes, which is a lie you have told before and which you will probably keep.

You cut a replacement pin from a length of old drill rod and file it until it slides home. Then you turn the wheel by hand, one tooth at a time, feeling the cogs find each other, until the teeth mesh with a sound like a clock finding its second. Somewhere above you the counterweight groans and settles.

When you flick the switch the cab light stutters, then holds. You ride it up yourself, just to be sure, and the doors open at the third floor onto a trolley already waiting, a porter yawning beside it. You leave the broken spring coiled on the bench, a small bright thing with nowhere to go, and you walk back down the stairs with grease on your cuffs.