Colour tattoo of a pocket watch with Roman numerals, a chain and yellow flowers with green leaves, wrapping an upper arm in a neo-traditional style.

Pocket watch and flowers on upper arm

Neo-trad · Upper arm · Mixed · Photo

The tattoo covers the upper arm with a pocket watch showing Roman numerals, its chain looping across the lower half of the dial. Yellow daisy-like flowers, daffodil-style blooms and green leaves surround the watch, with grey scrollwork and shaded petals filling the gaps. Bold outlines and soft shading give the design a rounded, illustrative look against the skin, with the subject set in a warm indoor setting next to a window.

Neo-trad Botanical Upper arm Pocket watch Clock Roman numeral Chain Flower Daisy Daffodil Leaves Scrollwork

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The 6.12 was already standing at Platform Two when Mr Dorrance pressed his pocket watch into my palm and told me to keep it still. He had carried that watch since his first week on the railway, and the chain looped through my fingers like something alive. Its Roman numerals had worn grey at the edges. 'Four minutes,' he said. 'Every morning for thirty-one years I have set this against the signal box, and every morning it has been four minutes slow. Nobody has ever complained.'

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I asked him why on earth a man would keep a watch wrong on purpose.

He didn't answer straight away. He took the watch back and looked at the station clock above the ticket hatch, then past it to the daffodils his wife had planted along the footbridge steps, their yellow heads nodding in the wind off the cutting. 'Ada used to walk down from the cottages to meet the first train,' he said. 'Four minutes was how long it took her to reach the gate. I never wanted to be the one who made her hurry.'

The guard blew his whistle. Mr Dorrance wound the watch once more, snapped the lid shut and tucked it back into his waistcoat. Last week the station clock went off for repairs, and I stood on Platform Two with my own watch in hand, leaving it four minutes slow, and waited for the 6.12 to come in on the strength of his habit.