Black and grey realism tattoo of an hourglass with a Roman numeral pocket clock, rays of sunlight and clouds, on an upper arm.

Hourglass and clock with sunburst on upper arm

Realism · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A large hourglass sits at the centre, with a Roman numeral clock face set in its upper bulb and a chain hanging from its neck. Behind it, soft clouds and radiating sunbeams fill the background, with the sun glowing near the top of the shoulder. The piece uses smooth shading and fine highlights in black and grey ink, giving the metal, glass and sky a realistic, dimensional look.

Realism Upper arm Hourglass Clock Sun Cloud Sunburst Roman numeral Pocket watch

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Your mother never let the hourglass sit upright for longer than a breath. Every Monday you carried it through from the back parlour on its brass tray, past the umbrella stand and the barometer that had stuck at Stormy since 1987, and set it on the sideboard where the lodgers could see it from the breakfast table. Mrs Pellow had bought it at a clearance sale in Ramsgate and swore it had come off a wrecked schooner, which nobody believed, least of all the Pellow children.

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The morning sun cleared the harbour wall at seven and had found the sideboard by ten past. You learned to stand in that bright bar with the glass cupped in both hands, watching the sand slide through the neck while the little pocket watch on its chain swung slow as a pendulum. Fourteen minutes for an egg. Twenty-two for a kipper. Mr Dorrance, who had taken room four since April and paid in advance every Friday, always asked for his egg turned twice.

The Friday he did not come down, you stood there with the glass going cool in your palms and saw that the sand was nearly through. Upstairs the floorboards creaked the way they always did under his slippers, then stopped altogether. Your mother was already halfway up the stairs with the spare key, one hand pressed flat against her apron.

You turned the glass one last time, though there was nobody left to eat the egg. Then you set it down in its patch of sunlight and let the sand fall on and on into the lower bulb while the sea went on doing what it had always done beyond the window.