Colour neo-traditional tattoo on the upper arm showing a woman's face merged with a skull, with a butterfly wing over one eye and a Roman numeral clock behind.

Half skull and half woman face with clock on upper arm

Neo-trad · Upper arm · Colour · Photo

A large tattoo on the upper arm shows a woman's face on the left half and a skull on the right, with a blue and orange butterfly wing covering one eye. A clock face with Roman numerals and an ornate hanging top sits behind the head, and fine black roots trail below the chin. Shading is smooth and realistic with bold colour in the butterfly, red lips and clock tones, set against a plain red top.

Neo-trad Realism Upper arm Skull Woman Face Butterfly Clock Roman numeral Root Lip

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Mr Ashdown kept the great clock over platform four for thirty-one years, and in all that time he never let it run a minute slow. So when the hands stuck at ten to nine on a wet Tuesday, I was the one sent up the iron ladder with a tin of oil and a bad temper.

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Inside the case the works were quiet, but not broken. Someone had packed the gears with dried moss and small grey feathers, and tucked behind the pendulum was a pale moth wing folded around a letter. I read it by torchlight. It was addressed to the station master, and it said only that the eleven-fifteen had gone out with a passenger who had not bought a ticket, and that the clock would keep the time until she came back for it.

I laughed at that, then stopped, because the door behind me had opened and the draught smelt of coal smoke and lavender. A figure stood on the gantry in a dust-coloured coat, one side of her painted in wing colours of blue and amber, the other side pale and polished like a bone left out in the rain. She did not look at me. She looked at the clock.

"You've been polite about it," she said. "Most people shout."

I handed her the letter. She folded it along the same creases and slid it into her sleeve. Then she set one finger on the minute hand, and the whole station went still, every kettle and gull and signal bell, until she nudged it forward and the platform began to breathe again.