Black and grey realism tattoo of a clock face with Roman numerals and interlocking gears on a forearm, shown from four angles.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Clockwork gears and clock face on a forearm

Realism · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

The tattoo covers the forearm and shows a large clock face with Roman numerals and hands, surrounded by interlocking metal gears and cogs. The shading is detailed, with highlights and deep shadows giving the gears a three-dimensional, metallic look. The image is a composite of four views of the same arm, showing the tattoo wrapping around the limb.

Realism Forearm Clock Gear Cog Roman numeral Clock hand Clockwork Mechanical

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Harriet,

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The hall clock stopped again on Tuesday, at twenty to four, the hour it always chooses when the gulls go quiet over the groyne. Mr Pardoe says it is the damp. I say it is the gears, which have been grinding their teeth since Father wound the thing in 1931 and never once oiled it.

Mrs Sadler in number six has taken to sitting beside it after breakfast with the bureau's magnifying glass and a pair of tweezers. She lifts out the little wheels one at a time and lays them on a folded handkerchief like communion wafers. She says the hands are the least of it. The real trouble is the cogs that have caught each other, teeth locked where they ought to turn free, and somebody has to ease them apart without snapping a single spoke.

On Thursday she found a wheel no bigger than a shirt button, with a date and two initials scratched into its rim. Neither of us knows whose they are. She put it back exactly where it had been, and then she wound the key, and the pendulum began to swing as if it had never been ill. The roman numerals caught the sea light through the fanlight and the whole hall smelled of machine oil and salt.

Come home before the Whitsun lets fill up. Bring your good oil and your patience. I am keeping the handkerchief folded in the drawer until you see it.

Your loving sister, Marjorie