Black and grey realism tattoo of an eye with a Roman numeral clock face iris and gears, on the upper arm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Eye and clock tattoo on upper arm

Realism · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A large tattoo shows an open eye whose iris is a clock face with Roman numerals and a central hub, surrounded by cogs, gear wheels and a pair of clock hands. The shading is smooth and detailed, with soft grey gradients across the eyelid, skin texture and metal parts. The design fills the upper arm, with the photograph taken at a close angle against a dark background.

Realism Upper arm Eye Clock Gear Cog Roman numeral Clock hand

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The church clock at Hollin Dale had stopped at ten to four, and Harriet Sill went up the tower ladder with a lamp in her teeth and a tin of oil in her coat pocket, because nobody else in the valley would touch it. Pigeons had nested in the bell frame. The wind came through the louvres like a man clearing his throat.

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Inside the great wheel she found the trouble, and it was not a broken tooth. Set into the centre of the escapement was an eye of tarnished brass, its iris a small clock face with Roman numerals worn almost smooth, and round it the gears sat like a crowd leaning in. The lid was open. When she held the lamp close, the pupil shifted, very slightly, to follow her.

Her grandfather had told her that a clock keeps a town honest, and that someone must keep the clock. She sat on the boards until the cold got into her knees. Then she understood what the valley had asked of the tower for two hundred years: to be watched over so nobody else had to stay awake. She dropped a bead of oil onto the lashes, wound the spring by hand, and set the hour hand to four.

At dawn the bell struck once, late, and the lid of the eye came down like a shop shutter. Down in the lanes the dogs stopped barking and the bakers lit their ovens. Harriet climbed down with the lamp unlit, having nothing left to see by, and the clock ticked on above her as if it had never been ill.