Three views of a full arm sleeve on a man's arm, with a black and grey clock face, a shaded hand, geometric linework and red splashes.

Clock and hand full arm sleeve

Geometric · Upper arm · Mixed · Photo

The sleeve features a large clock face with Roman numerals on the upper arm, beside a shaded hand and fragments of lettering on the forearm. Black and grey shading gives the clock and hand a realistic look, while fine geometric linework and loose red and black splashes run across the design. Three photographs show the arm from the front, side and back against a plain black background.

Geometric Realism Upper arm Forearm Clock Roman numeral Hand Geometric line Lettering Splash Sleeve

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Brother Anselm had wound the great clock every Sunday for thirty-one years, and every Sunday he climbed the same ladder with the same key in his sleeve, and the tower never once asked him why. This morning the minute hand had stopped at a quarter past four, and the bell below sat silent while the choir waited in the cold nave for Prime.

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He found the fault where he expected it, a brass pawl worn to a sliver and gummed with pigeon grease. He had no spare. The nearest smith was across the fells, a day's walk there and back, and the abbot had already sent word that the visiting bishop would expect the hours kept properly. So Anselm sat on the boards with the pawl in one palm and his own pocket watch in the other, and listened to the mechanism breathe.

Old Brother Tobias came up at noon with bread and a question about lunch, and stayed to watch. He had a habit of pressing his thumb against the glass of anything he admired. "You could file a new tooth," he said. "Badly, but it would hold." Anselm shook his head. Filing was how you ruined a thing you loved, he said, and went down for the lamp oil.

When he came back the light had moved across the numerals and the hand had shifted, just slightly, as if someone below had tugged a thread. He never learned whether it was the cold, the stamping of the choir, or his own fingers. He wound the weight, set the hand by his watch, and rang Vespers at the right minute, which was the only thing the bishop ever asked him about.