Black and grey realism tattoo of a Roman numeral clock face with a building in its centre, framed by banners reading GREAT and SCOTT, on an upper arm.

Clock face and banners on an upper arm

Realism · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A clock face with Roman numerals sits at the centre of the design, with a shaded building and a clock hand visible inside the dial. Two ribbon banners cross the top and bottom of the clock, with the words GREAT and SCOTT in bold lettering. The piece uses smooth greyscale shading and fine linework on skin, with the photograph taken close up against a dark background.

Realism Traditional Upper arm Clock Roman numeral Building Banner Lettering Clock hand

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The minute hand of the Corn Exchange clock had stuck at ten past four since the spring, and Dilys Harrow had stopped expecting it to shift. So when she climbed the iron ladder behind the bell loft on Thursday with a flask of stewed tea and a spanner wedged in her coat, it felt less like a repair than a sulk she intended to win.

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Behind the dial, wedged between two brass wheels, she found a biscuit tin with her father's handwriting on the lid. Inside were a dozen pennies, a stub of pencil and a folded note: Gears don't care about your plans, Dil. Wind her on Sundays and keep an eye on the weather. She laughed, which startled a pigeon off the parapet, and turned the key until the spring groaned.

The hands leapt. Ten past four became half past nine in one shuddering tick, and the bell struck eleven, then twelve, then gave up somewhere in the teens. Down in the square the bakery shutters rattled up on their own, and a car with a fin the colour of mint pulled alongside the fountain as though it had been waiting for her to notice. "Great Scott," she said, which was what her father used to shout when a sponge rose too high for the tin.

She has wound the clock every Sunday since. Each Monday the bakery opens a little earlier, the mint car is parked a little closer to the steps, and the gulls seem to know her name. The hands are never quite where the town expects them to be, and Dilys has decided that suits her fine.