Black and grey pocket watch tattoo with Roman numerals and a hanging chain, shaded in a realistic style on the inner forearm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Pocket watch on a forearm

Realism · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A pocket watch with a hinged bow, looped chain and Roman numerals around the dial, with hands set at about ten past eleven. The outline is dark and crisp, while the dial and case use soft grey shading and light highlights to suggest depth. The watch sits centred on the forearm against bare skin, with a blue top and a grey floor visible in the background.

Realism Forearm Pocket watch Clock Chain Roman numeral

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom,

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The Winter Gardens band has started packing up its instruments early since you left, and Mr Hallam has stopped letting anyone stay past eleven. I kept the lamp on in the cloakroom anyway, the way you used to, so the girls know where to collect their coats. Dad's pocket watch is still hanging on the hook by the till. I wind it every Sunday, though it runs slow now, and I've taken to checking it against the station clock just so I have something to be cross about.

Last Saturday the hands stood at ten past eleven when the last waltz finished and nobody moved to leave. I told myself it was the watch, not the dancing. Miss Pearl, who sells the programmes, said it was the best she'd seen the floor since the war, and she cried a bit while she said it, then pretended she hadn't. The dial has gone the colour of weak tea where the varnish has crazed, and the Roman numerals look like they've been pressed onto a map of countries nobody has visited.

I keep thinking about the chain. Dad always said a watch was only honest if you could hold it in your fist. So I am writing this with it lying beside the paper, and when the ink dries I'll fold it into the envelope with the pressed carnation from the Armistice dance. You can tell me what time it is over there.

Yours, Edie