Black and grey traditional style hourglass tattoo on the upper arm, with a flower at the top, a sailing ship in the upper and lower bulbs, and the words savor it on a banner.

Hourglass with ship and flower on upper arm

Traditional · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

An hourglass fills the upper arm, topped by a large five-petalled flower and framed by carved wood style uprights with small flower motifs on each side. A tall sailing ship sits in the upper bulb above waves, with a second ship in the lower bulb, and the words savor it are lettered on a banner at the base. The work is done in bold black outlines with light grey shading and no colour, shown against a plain skin tone with a grey vest and a wall of framed flash behind.

Traditional Upper arm Hourglass Ship Sailing ship Flower Wave Lettering

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Mattie Rowe fiddled at the Lantern Hall on Saturday nights, and the old men said he had never once stopped before the sand ran out. The glass hung above the bandstand, a brass-cased thing the hall keeper had bought from a Liverpool auction, and its fine grey sand took exactly an hour to pass through the neck. When the last grain dropped, the dancing stopped, the lamps were turned down and everyone went home. Mattie liked that rule. It gave him a clock he could hear.

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One February a stranger came in off the tide with a sea chest and no coat. He stood by the door and watched the glass rather than the dancers. "That top ship is sailing home," he said, "and the bottom one has already arrived. Turn the glass and the arriving one puts out to sea." Mattie laughed and kept his bow moving. The stranger only nodded, as if he had said nothing strange, and the fiddle went on through the polka and the reel.

When the sand was low and the floor had thinned to two couples, the stranger crossed to the bandstand. He did not touch the glass. He leaned close, looked at the thin rigging of the lower ship and said, "Savor it," the way a man reads a name off a headstone. Mattie blinked, and when he looked again the stranger was gone, leaving only the chest's salt smell and a sprig of sea holly on the boards.

Mattie finished the tune, then lifted the glass with both hands and turned it over himself. The grey sand began to fall again, and the ship that had arrived rose back into the light.