Four-panel photo of a black and grey full sleeve tattoo on an arm, with a skull, roses, a clock, a microphone and text banners, running from shoulder to wrist.

Black and grey skull full sleeve

Realism · Shoulder · Black and grey · Photo

The four panels show one arm covered by a full sleeve with a large skull at the shoulder, roses, a pocket watch, a microphone and scrolled banners carrying lettering. The lower forearm includes a compass, feathers and flame or cloud shapes, with the design continuing around the arm. The shading is soft and grey throughout with bold black outlines, and the composition wraps the arm from several angles.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Tuesday. Tied up below the lock at Hartley Wharf with the engine ticking as it cools. The radio has come in clear for once, so I've heard the forecast twice, both times ending on rain for the Midlands. Dad's pocket watch sits on the shelf above the stove where he left it, stopped at ten past four. I wound it this morning because somebody should, and it ran for an hour before it gave up again.

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Tom sent a postcard from Liverpool with a drawing of a microphone on the front and the words *try to hold on* written under it in biro, as if he was copying them off a wall. He always did have a way of making a line sound like a chorus. I used to sing up on the roof while we went through the locks, and he'd shout the harmonies up from the towpath, badly, until the lock keeper told us to pipe down.

Thursday. The water has dropped two feet and the weed has gone grey on the cut. I walked to the chandlery for paraffin and came back with a pair of brass dividers I didn't need, because the man behind the counter said Dad had ordered them years ago and never collected. I laid them beside the compass on the chart table, the one with the needle stuck north-north-west. The boat still points the way it always did, even when nobody is at the tiller.

Friday. Wound the watch again and it ran longer. I wrote back on the same card, under Tom's biro line, in pencil so it can be rubbed out: *It never did give up. Neither did you. Come home for lock day and sing it badly.*

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