Black and grey realism tattoo of an ornate clock face with Roman numerals and ornamental hands, wrapped around a forearm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Ornate clock face on a forearm

Realism · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A large clock face with Roman numerals, ornate hands and a decorative scrolled bezel wraps around the forearm. The shading is smooth and detailed, with strong highlights on the dial and darker tones on the carved top edge and the hands. The tattoo sits against a striped fabric background, with the wearer's hand visible at the lower left.

Realism Forearm Clock Roman numeral Clock hand Dial Ornate frame Scrollwork

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Mrs Hollis had asked for the clock to be wound every Sunday, and in thirty-one years Tomasz had never once forgotten. Now it was Thursday, the frost still grey on the box hedges, and he stood on the wooden steps with the key in his fist, looking at the face fixed to the potting-shed wall. The Roman numerals had worn to ghosts. The scrolled iron bezel had rusted at the top where rain ran down from the gutter.

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He thought about the summer she had bought it at a sale in Ludlow, paying too much and laughing about it. She had wanted something that looked as if it had been here before the house. The hands had been cast by a man who had never seen the sea, she said, all curls and leaves, and they pointed at nothing in particular most afternoons.

Today they pointed at the sixty, where they always stopped when the mechanism gave up. He turned the key anyway. Something inside clicked, caught, and the minute hand lurched forward with a sound like a cough. Tomasz kept turning until his wrist ached and the tick came through the brick, slow and sure, as if the wall itself had remembered how.

Afterwards he cut a sprig of rosemary from the bed by the gate and laid it on the step where her shoes used to be left. The clock ran on behind him, a little fast, and he did not correct it.