Colour biomechanical sleeve on an upper arm showing a blue turbine fan, a spark plug and segmented metal plates.

Biomechanical turbine and engine sleeve

Upper arm · Colour · Photo

A full arm sleeve of biomechanical engine parts, centred on a blue turbine fan set within segmented silver plates. A spark plug and pipework sit lower on the arm, towards the elbow. Smooth shading in blues, purples and pinks gives the metal a glossy, three-dimensional finish against the grey clothing of the wearer.

Upper arm Shoulder Biomechanical Sleeve Pipe

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The turbine had been dead for eleven years, so Ruth was not expecting it to be turning when she pulled up the shutter of her father's lock-up on a wet Tuesday in March. The blue fan sat where he had bolted it, inside a cage of silver plates he had cut from a scrapped lorry cab, and it was turning slowly, the way a sleeper turns over. Pipes ran from it down the wall to the spark plug he had fitted last, the one with the chipped porcelain, and the whole rig ticked and hummed like a kettle thinking about boiling.

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Her father had never called it anything but the Engine. He had built it through the winter the works closed, when the men on his street had nothing to do but bolt things together. Ruth had handed him spanners as a girl and learnt that the plates had to overlap like scales, or the heat got in and warped them. She stood in the doorway with her coffee going cold and watched the blades cut the damp air. Nobody had been near the place since the funeral. The solicitor had the key and the bank had the rest.

She went to the bench, found the box of plugs and the wrench, and told herself she was only going to stop it before it wore itself out. When she loosened the plug the fan slowed and shuddered, then, as the gap closed, drew a long breath through the pipes and picked up speed. She tightened it again and it stopped dead. Her father's note was taped to the casing in capitals: LET IT RUN ONCE A YEAR. IT KNOWS THE WAY.

Ruth put the wrench down. She rolled the shutter up to its full height and let the March light fall across the floor, and the turbine turned to meet it, throwing blue across the puddles on the concrete. She left it running all morning, and when she finally locked up she did not look back, because she could hear it humming behind her all the way to the car.