Black and grey realism tattoo of a cracked pocket watch with gears, flying birds and the word Now, on a person's ribs.

Cracked pocket watch with birds on ribs

Realism · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

A cracked pocket watch with Roman numerals and visible gears sits on the side of the ribs, with fragments breaking away from the glass. Two birds fly near the watch, and a script word reading Now appears on the dial. The linework is fine and the shading is smooth and detailed, using only black ink and grey tones against the skin.

Realism Ribs Pocket watch Clock Gear Bird Crack Script Roman numeral Chain

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Sit closer, the stove is the only warm thing in this carriage. You want the clockmender's tale? Then you'll hear about Teodor Lusk, who kept the clocks in the customs hall at Vellmark Crossing, where the rails run under the barrier and nobody on either side had agreed the time since the war.

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Lusk carried a silver pocket watch his father had left him, the Roman numerals worn down to ghosts. Each night he wound it, and each night it lost a minute, which he blamed on the cold. One February a girl came to his window with a passport she could not read and a birdcage with nothing in it. He stamped her papers, and as the ink dried the glass of his watch split from the crown to the six, and three pale shards lifted away like wet leaves.

Two sparrows came out of the crack, or so he swore to me afterwards, and went over the barrier into the fog. The gears underneath kept turning, which surprised him more than the birds did. When he opened the case he found a word engraved inside the lid that he had never seen before, and it was the only word he needed: Now.

He never mended the glass. He gave the clock hall to the girl's father and walks the platform each evening with the watch open in his palm, listening for wings. He says the time was exactly right that night, and he was the only man at the crossing who didn't check it.