Black and grey realism tattoo on a man's upper arm and shoulder, showing a pocket watch with Roman numerals, a script banner and shaded roses.

Pocket watch and roses on upper arm

Realism · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A large black and grey tattoo covers the upper arm and shoulder of a shirtless man. A pocket watch with Roman numerals sits at the top, with a script banner across its base and shaded roses with leaves below. The shading is smooth and detailed, with soft grey tones giving the watch and flowers depth against the skin.

Realism Botanical Upper arm Shoulder Pocket watch Clock Roman numeral Banner Script Rose Leaves

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The watch came over on the Tuesday boat, wrapped in a handkerchief that still smelled of coal smoke. Mrs Kerr set it on my bench at the back of the shop and said her husband had wound it every night for forty-one years, right up until the evening the Morag Rose didn't come back past the skerry. She didn't want it mended so much as made to tell the right time again, though she couldn't have said what the right time was anymore.

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The case had gone green at the hinge and the crystal was cracked clean across the twelve. Inside, the movement was furred with salt, and someone had scratched a tiny rose into the back plate, petals no bigger than a barley grain. I spent three evenings with my loupe and a tin of paraffin, cleaning out the sea until the balance wheel swung free. On the lid, the banner ribbon had worn to a single word I could still read under the lamp: Ever. I wondered what the rest of it had been, and whether she knew.

When I rang her to say it was ready, she came down the hill in her good coat and asked me to leave it running four minutes slow. I told her that was a poor thing to do to a watch, that it would never keep true time again. She said she knew, and that the ferry had been four minutes behind her husband's watch for as long as she could remember, and she had never once wanted it to catch up.

I set it back by four minutes, closed the lid over the faded ribbon, and watched her put it in her coat pocket. Out past the harbour wall, the ferry was still due at ten past nine, and she walked home slowly enough that she was there before it sounded its horn.