Black and grey realism tattoo of clock gears and Roman numerals covering an upper arm.

Clockwork gears and Roman numerals on upper arm

Realism · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

The tattoo shows interlocking clock mechanisms with toothed gears, spokes and a central pivot, with Roman numerals XI, XII, X, VI, V and IIII set into round dial faces around the design. The gears and dials are rendered with smooth grey shading, highlights and cast shadows that give a three-dimensional, metallic look. The design fills the upper arm edge to edge, and the photograph is taken straight on against a dark background.

Realism Upper arm Clock Gear Clockwork Roman numeral Mechanical Dial

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Mind the draught from the platform door and hold your tea with both hands, because this is the part where my father always stopped to blow on the fire. The clock over Halden Junction was built in Leeds by a man called Josiah Pell, who believed the world ran on teeth. Every wheel he cut had to mesh with its neighbour or the hands would lie. So he packed a dozen wheels behind that great dial, all turning on one pivot, and set the numerals round the face in his own careful hand. He carved the four as IIII, because he said IV looked like a door left open.

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For three days in the winter of nineteen twelve, the clock stood still at twenty to seven, and the 6.40 to Manchester stood at the platform with its steam going up into the dark. The stationmaster sent for the fitter, the fitter sent for the porter, and the porter, a young woman called Dilys Fenn, climbed the iron ladder with a rag and a can of oil. She found nothing wrong with the wheels. What she found, wedged between two teeth of the great gear, was a brass penny, bent flat and polished by a child's thumb.

Nobody ever learned who had put it there, but Dilys worked it out the way you work out a train. A woman on the cold end of the platform had been waiting for a husband off the late shift, and she had wanted one more minute to see him come through the gate. She had sent her boy up the ladder with a penny and a prayer, and the clock had obeyed her for three days. Dilys tapped the penny free, oiled the teeth, and the hands moved on.

The train left on time that night, and the husband came through the gate at seven minutes past, two minutes late, which is the only lie that clock ever told. Dilys kept the penny in her apron pocket until she died. Drink your tea now, while it's hot.