Black and grey realism tattoo of a hooded bird with a visible ribcage perched on a clock, on the back of a calf.

Hooded bird with ribcage on a clock on a calf

Realism · Calf · Black and grey · Photo

A hooded bird, resembling a raven or crow, stands on top of a clock face with its talons gripping the rim. Its cloak is shown as soft grey shading, with a ribcage visible through the chest area. The tattoo uses smooth gradients alongside loose, sketchy lines that fade into the skin around the base.

Realism Calf Bird Raven Crow Hood Ribcage Clock Skeleton

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The clock above the bandstand at the Palais Verdant has said ten to twelve for as long as anyone can remember, and tonight you are the one who has to wind it. Mrs Okonedo gave you the key at six, with the instruction to leave it on the hook behind the stage door before the last waltz, and you have been tempted every hour since to see what happens if you don't.

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The dancers come up the stairs in their dull best, coats over their arms, and the band plays the same six tunes they always play. Nobody notices the crow on the clock face until you do. It sits on the rim with its hood pulled low over a grey cloak, claws hooked round the brass, and when you look closely the cloth has gone thin over the chest, showing the pale curve of ribs like the spars of a boat turned over on a beach.

You climb the ladder with the key in your teeth. The mechanism is cold and smells of machine oil and old cigarettes. Up close the bird is only soot and smudge, but it turns its head when your hand reaches the case, and the hall goes quiet in the way a room does when someone has stopped breathing for a second too long.

Then the minute hand gives a small click and moves, the band strikes the closing number, and you realise you are holding the key over the wrong dial. Below, the dancers are already laughing and pulling on their gloves. The crow shifts its weight, unbothered, and waits for you to finish the job.