Black and grey realism tattoo of a pocket watch with Roman numerals, roses, butterflies and a banner reading Ashana on an upper arm and shoulder.

Pocket watch, roses and butterflies on upper arm

Realism · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A realistic black and grey tattoo covers the upper arm and shoulder, centred on a pocket watch with Roman numerals and hands set against the skin. Two roses with shaded leaves sit on either side of the watch, with a further rose below a curled banner that reads Ashana, and three butterflies are placed around the design. The shading is smooth and fine, with soft grey tones giving depth to the petals, watch casing and wings.

Realism Botanical Upper arm Shoulder Pocket watch Clock Rose Butterfly Banner Lettering Leaves

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The snow had shut the pass for three nights, and still no traveller had come down from the high road. Old Edda kept the inn at Thornbeck with a fire banked in the hall and a long-case clock that ran four minutes slow, as her mother's had before her. When the latch lifted on the fourth night, a man stood in the doorway with frost on his brows and a silver pocket watch open in his palm.

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He asked for a bed and for the hour. Edda told him it was past eleven and the watch agreed, though its hands sat at a quarter to twelve and would not move. He said it had stopped on the morning his wife set out over the pass to fetch their boy from the valley, and that he had carried it since without once winding it, because he could not bear to hear it count on without her. The lid was engraved with roses and small moths, and the bow was a loop of worked silver like a stem.

Edda sat by the hearth with the watch in her lap and opened its back with a hairpin. Caught among the wheels was a winter moth, dry as a leaf, its wings grey as ash. She lifted it out with great care, cleaned the works with a corner of her apron, and wound the crown until it resisted. The second hand shivered and began to tick. The man put his hand over his mouth and did not take it away until morning.

In the grey light he was gone, and the watch lay on the sill with a scrap of paper folded beneath it. Wind it on the day the roses open, the note said. Edda put it in her apron pocket and went to the window. The pass was still white, but the long-case clock in the hall had caught up its four minutes, and she could hear the watch ticking against her hip all the way to the kitchen.