Traditional-style owl with a third eye on its headdress, a pocket watch and a pink flower in blue, grey and red ink on the forearm, shown in three side-by-side views.

Owl and pocket watch on a forearm

Traditional · Forearm · Mixed · Photo

A large owl with a three-eyed crown or headdress sits at the centre of the design, with a pink flower behind its head, leaves to the side and a pocket watch at the lower edge. The owl and watch are rendered in bold outlines with grey shading and blue detailing on the feathers and face, and the flower and leaves add red and olive accents. The photo shows the same forearm from three angles, with the tattoo filling the frame against a dark grey background.

Traditional Neo-trad Forearm Owl Pocket watch Flower Leaves Eye Headdress

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Marguerite, the ward clock stopped again at ten past three, so I've been telling the hours by my late father's pocket watch, which I still carry out of habit and because it's the only thing he left me that keeps decent time. Mrs Okafor in bed nine says it's running slow. I told her it runs on hospital time, which is always a little behind the rest of the city.

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Three nights now the owl has been perched on the lintel above the sluice room door. Nobody else seems to see it. Sister Pell says it's a tawny that came in through the bin store and she'll ring the pest people in the morning, but she said the same thing on Monday. I leave a saucer of water on the sill for it, and by dawn the saucer is always empty, which tells me something is drinking, if not the owl.

The crown on that bird has three eyes, the middle one half shut as if it's listening harder than the other two. Mr Lindqvist in bay four says that's how you know it's been sent to keep watch over the men who can't sleep. I don't think he's wrong. I think he's just as tired as the rest of us, and tiredness makes everything look like a message.

Last night the owl dropped a dead moth onto the face of the watch, very neatly, the way a clerk files a form, and then it flew off down the corridor towards the lifts. I followed as far as the doors. The lift arrived, opened on an empty car, and closed again. I've decided that counts as a sign. I'm going to my chair by the nurses' station now, feet up on the bin, and I'll write again when the clock agrees with the sun.