Realism tattoo of a blue rose on the shoulder merging into a grey pocket watch mechanism across the chest.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Blue rose and pocket watch on shoulder and chest

Realism · Shoulder · Mixed · Photo

A large realistic tattoo covers the shoulder and chest, with a blue rose with pink-tinged petals on the shoulder and a detailed pocket watch dial with Roman numerals and exposed gears across the chest. The shading is smooth and greyscale for the watch, with soft gradients and sharp highlights, while the rose uses vivid blue and red tones. The photograph is taken at a close angle with the tattoo filling most of the frame.

Realism Shoulder Chest Rose Pocket watch Clock Gear Roman numeral Chest piece

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom,

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The watch has stopped again. Your father's, the one with the Roman numerals worn almost smooth at the twelve, gave up at twenty past four on Tuesday, which is the minute the cage comes up at the Hesketh shift change, so I suppose it has kept better time than either of us. I wound it with the little key the way he taught you, then sat with it open on the kitchen table while the kettle went cold, watching the gears turn in their own small weather behind the glass.

Mr Idris at the pawn shop on Front Street says the mainspring is tired and the balance wants a clean. He won't take money for it until you are home. He says you owe him a game of dominoes and he means to collect in person.

The rose in the back yard came out blue this year, did I tell you? Not blue like the bluebells on the bank, but a bruised, wet blue with pink at the edges of every petal, as though it had been dipped and then forgotten. Mrs Carr says the frost did it. I say it is the first thing on this street that has ever gone against the grain to please somebody, and I have decided to let it.

When the men come up on Friday I will set the watch by the pit-head clock, the way your father always did, and hold it to my ear until the second hand starts. Come back with the same hands on the same face. That is all I ask.

Your Mam