Black ink drawing of a compass rose inside a pocket watch case with a calligraphic quote beside it, shown as a tattoo design.

Compass in a pocket watch case with quote

Lettering · Black and grey · Flash

A pocket watch with a ring bail and a compass rose at its centre, drawn in black ink. Hatched lines shade the case and the outer rim, while the compass points are solid black with fine dotted detail on the inner ring. A block of calligraphic text runs down the right-hand side on a plain white background.

Lettering Compass Compass rose Pocket watch Quote Calligraphy Hatching

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Nobody at the Crown and Anchor has recognised you yet, which suits you fine. You stand by the coat rack with a pint going warm, watching Dennis Hallam squint at your name badge, and you turn the brass pocket watch over in your palm the way you used to under the desk in Mr Pryce's physics lab. The needle still swings. It has never once pointed where you wanted, only where it pleased.

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You found the watch in 1998, wedged behind a loose panel in the old music block while the builders were stripping it out. Inside the case someone had written in fine copperplate: things hidden behind walls, things dangerous to come to, to draw closer to see and be amazed. You were fifteen and certain it was a message meant for you. Mr Pryce took it off you in the corridor and said it was a piece of junk from a scrap merchant, then gave it back at the end of term with a wink you still think about.

Halfway through the second round Dennis finally places you and bellows your old nickname across the room. Agnes Okoro, who sat behind you for five years, leans in and asks whether you ever found out what the watch was pointing at. You say no. It is the lie you have kept polished since Year Eleven, and it still comes out smooth.

When the function room thins out you walk past the bins and the chain-link fence, the watch open in your hand. The needle drifts, steadies, and points past the car park towards the dark bulk of the music block, boarded up since the day they closed the school. Your coat is still on the hook inside. Your breath clouds in the cold. You fold the lid shut, tuck the watch into your pocket, and start walking.