Black and grey realism sleeve on an upper arm and forearm showing doves in flight, a pocket watch and a partly visible rose.

Doves and pocket watch sleeve in black and grey

Realism · Shoulder · Black and grey · Photo

A shirtless man shows a large sleeve tattoo on his arm, with three doves in flight near the shoulder, a detailed pocket watch with Roman numerals in the middle, and a partly visible rose lower down the forearm. The tattoo uses smooth black and grey shading with soft clouds behind the birds and fine detail on the watch face. The photo is taken indoors against wooden lockers and a slatted bench, with the arm filling most of the frame.

Realism Shoulder Upper arm Forearm Dove Pocket watch Clock face Rose Cloud

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Walter, the clock over the bar at the Palais has been running eleven minutes slow since the bombs took the chimney in March, and Mr Hebden won't let anyone touch it because he says the mechanism is a sort of memory. So we dance by the wrong time now, and nobody seems to mind. Your mother came on Saturday with her hat pinned on like a swallow's nest and asked after you twice before I had her coat off.

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Tonight the band played 'Moonlight Serenade' and I thought of the doves you let go from the back step, three of them, the grey one that wouldn't leave the gutter until you lifted it off the slate yourself. Mrs Pryce from the laundry says that's bad luck for a sailor. I told her you were never a sailor, you were a clerk with a pocket watch your father left you, and you were too proud to admit you couldn't keep time.

Keep the watch wound. I've been winding it on Thursdays, the way you showed me, three turns to the left and one back. The hands have stopped at ten to eleven, but the face is still clean and the Roman numerals are as sharp as the day they were painted, and when I hold it to the lamp the rose engraved on the case still catches the light. Mr Hebden says that's just brass. I say it's the only thing in this town that hasn't gone soft at the edges.

Come home by the first of the month. I'll keep a slow waltz back for you, and we'll dance it at the wrong time.

Yours, Edie