Black and grey realism tattoo of a cracked pocket watch with Roman numerals wrapped in chains, across the upper arm and shoulder.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Cracked pocket watch and chains on upper arm

Realism · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A cracked pocket watch with Roman numerals sits at the centre of the design, with its glass shattered and a heavy chain wrapped diagonally across the face. The watch and chain are rendered with smooth shading, highlights and cast shadows, set against soft smoky grey clouds that fill the background. The tattoo covers the upper arm and part of the shoulder, shown in a close, well-lit photograph.

Realism Upper arm Shoulder Pocket watch Clock Chain Roman numeral Smoke

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The customs man at Dover had a watch that ran four minutes slow, and he would not hear otherwise. Sit down, I'll tell you about the night he tried to fix it. Hold your tea and mind the steam. A lorry full of nothing but church bells had broken down on the M20, and the driver, a thin Welshman called Idris Pugh, was sure the bells were the reason his cargo would not move. Every hour he pulled the same bent pocket watch from his coat and said the hour aloud, as if the saying could keep it true.

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The officer, Mr Cole, took the watch from him at the barrier. Its glass was starred across the middle, and a chain had been wound round it so many times the links had worn bright. Cole turned it over and read the Roman numerals, one after another, under the fluorescent lamp. Eleven, then twelve, then the little hand stuck on the crack. He told Idris the watch had stopped at the moment someone decided to pay for something they could not afford, and Idris laughed and said that was the most Welsh thing anyone had ever said to him.

They sat in the cold office until the sky over the harbour went the colour of wet slate. Cole wound the watch, and it ticked, and then it did not. He handed it back with a shrug. Idris put it in his pocket, drove off towards Folkestone, and the bells arrived in Belfast three weeks late, still silent. That is the story, and the watch is still in Dover, slow by four minutes, because somebody has to be.