Neo-traditional hourglass tattoo on the outer thigh, showing a sunset above and a moon and stars over dotwork sand, inside a black diamond frame.

Hourglass with sunset and night sky on thigh

Neo-trad · Thigh · Mixed · Photo

An hourglass sits inside a black diamond frame, with a red and orange sunset with rays in the upper bulb and a moon and gold stars over stippled sand in the lower bulb. Two carved human profiles face each other along the glass, and ornamental scrollwork fills the corners of the frame. The bold black outlines and saturated colour contrast with the stippled shading in the sand, and the design fills the thigh in a centred, upright composition.

Neo-trad Dotwork Thigh Hourglass Sunset Moon Star Sand Diamond Profile Face Scrollwork Sun

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Sit closer, the lot of you, and mind the cinders. No, Tomas, the sand does not run faster for being watched. My grandmother swore it did, and she watched that glass every night of her life from the window of the toll house above Varra Gap.

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The glass belonged to two brothers, Anselm and Ioan, who kept the pass between them. Anselm took the sun. He walked the road from dawn, setting the red cloud over the ridge and throwing gold along the scree until the shepherds could see their goats. Ioan took the stars. He lit the lamp at dusk, counted the constellations on his fingers, and let the moon out of its box. Each evening they met at the glass, one turning it, the other turning away, and the sand passed from the top bulb to the bottom without either of them saying a word.

Then came the autumn the sand stopped. Anselm, who had always been the talker, had nothing to say to his brother. He had seen a cart go over the edge at the bend, and the driver's daughter standing alone at the rail, and he had not gone down to her because the sun could not wait. Ioan climbed up to the toll house with a single lantern and set it on the sill between them. 'You stay until she is home,' he said. 'I will carry the light.'

Anselm stayed. The moon came up late that night and hung over the gap like a lamp left burning, and the girl walked up the switchbacks by its light, one hand on the rock. My grandmother said the sand ran slow for the rest of that winter, and that when you turned the glass you could hear two men breathing. Nobody has ever proved her wrong, so mind your hands on the glass, and go to bed.