Colour neo-traditional tattoo of a pocket watch cracked open to reveal gears and hands, with Roman numerals, sitting on the upper arm.

Broken pocket watch with gears on an arm

Neo-trad · Upper arm · Colour · Photo

A pocket watch with a gold case is shown cracked open, revealing clock hands, Roman numerals and interlocking cogs in its face. Gears and fragments also break away from the watch at the lower left. Bold dark outlines, soft shading and yellow, gold, blue and red ink give the piece a illustrative, lively finish.

Neo-trad Upper arm Pocket watch Clock Gear Cog Roman numeral Clock hand

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom,

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The road out past Sallow Wells took the back axle off Dad's lorry on Tuesday, and the watch went with it. You'll remember he kept it in his waistcoat pocket every day he drove the mail run, the gold case gone soft at the hinge from his thumb. When the cab slewed into the ditch it cracked clean across the face, and I found the works lying in the sand as if someone had emptied a drawer. Three little cogs, a hand no longer than my fingernail, and the great brass wheel still turning when I picked it up, as though nobody had told it.

The mechanic in town says the mainspring is fine and the frame is not. He wants forty pounds to make it whole again, which is more than the lorry is worth. So I've been sitting on the step of the depot with a jam jar full of teeth, trying to work out which ones belong to which. The Roman numerals still show, IX and XI and the little dent where the XII used to be. Mum would have laughed to see me crouched in the dust with my tweezers and a torch.

I'm writing because I've decided to leave the hands where they stopped, twenty past four, and not wind it again until somebody can tell me what time it is now. If you come out before the rains, bring the good oil and your patience. I'll keep the jar on the windowsill where the sun comes through it.

Yours, Ada