Realism tattoo on a forearm showing an open pocket watch with Roman numerals and visible gears, a chain, and grey shaded flowers with gold accents.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Pocket watch and flowers on a forearm

Realism · Forearm · Mixed · Photo

A realistic pocket watch sits at the centre of the forearm, with Roman numerals on a cream dial, a gold rim, and an open view of the gear movement. A chain hangs from the watch, and shaded grey flowers with yellow centres sit beside it, with a further flower and a pocket watch shape at the upper left. The work uses fine grey shading and highlights, with gold used for the watch rim, hands and flower centres against mainly grey tones.

Realism Forearm Pocket watch Clock Roman numeral Gear Chain Flower Anemone

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Ruth,

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They kept the watch at the Calais barrier for nearly an hour, and I thought that was the end of it. The officer, a young man with a rash of freckles, held Father's pocket watch up to the strip light and turned it over as if it might confess something. Its case had been open since Grandad's day, so the gears showed through the glass like a small grey town. He asked what it was for. I said telling time, and he said that was a funny answer for a thing you could not stop looking at.

Then he found the flowers. I had packed the windflowers in tissue inside the lid, pressed flat since March, and their petals had gone brown at the edges. He asked whether they were allowed. I told him they were anemones, from the bank behind the orchard, and that Father had pressed them for Mother the spring before she left. He looked at me for a long moment, then wrote something on a card and handed the watch back with its chain wound twice round my fingers.

I have not opened it since. The hands still stand at ten past four, the minute Father stopped it, and I have never had the heart to wind it. At the far side of the barrier, with the sea wind shoving at my coat and the lorries grinding past, I caught myself listening for a ticking that was not there.

Write to me when you reach Lyon. Tell me whether the orchard is still standing. The flowers are yours when I come, though I suspect I am keeping them for the walk back.