Realistic colour tattoo of an owl with red eyes and a soft teal and orange wash, with a clock face below it, on a forearm.

Owl and clock on a forearm

Realism · Forearm · Mixed · Photo

A large owl with red eyes and detailed feather texture faces forward across the upper forearm. Its head is shaded in browns and tans, with orange and yellow strokes fading down into the feathers and a loose teal wash behind it. A pale clock face and a dark leaf-like shape sit lower on the arm near the wrist, against a black background.

Realism Forearm Owl Clock Feather Leaf

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom,

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The apples came in early this year, and Father says the late ones will be ready before the month is out, so you had better come home before the ladders are put away. Mrs Haskett's boy has been sleeping in the shed to keep the wasps off the windfalls, and he swears the owl has taken to sitting on the gate post at dusk, looking at him as if he owes it money.

I went out to look for it yesterday with the lantern. Nothing on the post but a feather, rust and cream, caught in the splintered wood. Up in the old Bramley the leaves were moving, though there was no wind, and I saw two red eyes catch the light before the rest of it came clear. It did not fly. It only turned its head the way Grandmother's cuckoo clock used to turn on the hour, all at once and quite pleased with itself.

You will laugh, but I took the clock off the kitchen wall this morning, the one that stopped the week you left. I wanted to see whether the works had seized. The hands still said twenty to four. I wound it, set it by the church bell, and hung it on the nail under the sill facing the orchard, so it can keep the owl company.

Come home by Saturday. Bring your good boots, and do not argue with the owl.

Your sister, Edie