Black and grey realism tattoo of an ornate key with a clock face and a feather, on the side of the ribs.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Ornate key with clock face on the side ribs

Realism · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

A large ornate key with a clock face set in its bow, shown in fine shaded black and grey. A feather is drawn behind the top of the key, and a thin beaded chain hangs from the shank. The key runs diagonally down the frame, with the clock and filigree scrollwork at the top and the bit at the bottom.

Realism Ribs Key Clock Feather Filigree Chain

Find an artist for this

Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The clock in the bell tower had stood at a quarter to four since the winter Brother Anselm died, and nobody would say why it mattered that I should be the one to wind it. The abbot handed me the key at compline on its thin beaded chain and told me to mind the weights. I wore it under my habit, where it knocked against my breastbone every time I climbed the hundred and twelve stone steps.

Keep reading

The key was older than the tower. Its bow was scrolled like a Lenten altar screen, and set into the middle was a small white dial with black numerals, its hands always pointing at the wrong hour. A jackdaw had nested in the belfry that spring, and Anselm had kept one of its grey feathers pressed inside his ledger at the page for the year he stopped winding.

On the first frosty morning of Advent I climbed with an oil can and the key. The weights sat on the boards like sleeping dogs. The key turned the brass lock with a small sound, like someone letting out a held breath. Taped inside the case against the pendulum rod was a slip in Anselm's cramped hand: Set her to the hour the bell rang for you. I had no idea which bell he meant until I looked down through the louvres and saw the novices filing into the cloister for their first silence, and remembered he had counted my late arrival on that wet day as my beginning.

I moved the hands to seven minutes past seven, let the weights fall, and felt the tower take a breath. Below, the bell rang once, and somebody in the cloister looked up.