Black and grey realism tattoo of an open pocket watch with Roman numerals and visible gears, sitting on the forearm.

Pocket watch with gears on a forearm

Realism · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A pocket watch with Roman numerals on its dial sits at the centre of the design, with its movement and small gears visible through an opened case. The shading is black and grey, with soft highlights on the metal and deep shadows around the case and the crown at the top. The design wraps along the forearm, with the watch face and dark swirling shapes filling the frame against an orange shirt.

Realism Forearm Pocket watch Clock Gear Roman numeral

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Nell Cotterill had wound the Palais clock every Friday since her father's chest got too bad for the ladder, and tonight it stood at a quarter to eleven with its brass hands fixed like a held breath. Sid Harkin on the bandstand kept the band going through 'Stardust' a third time, eyeing the empty floor and the clock together.

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She drew her grandfather's pocket watch from her apron. The silver case had a crack across the glass and an open back that showed the gears, wheels no bigger than shirt buttons. She turned the crown once, then again, feeling the mainspring push back against her thumb. The chandelier caught the movement and threw it across her palm. Behind her a voice said, 'That's a railway movement, isn't it? Sounds soft.'

He was a shipyard lad called Tom Reddy, with oil under his fingernails and a borrowed suit, and he asked for the watch the way other men asked for a dance. She gave it to him. He held the case to his ear, nodded, and handed it back with the spring already set. 'Give it a minute,' he said. 'Then ask the hall.'

She didn't ask anyone. She walked to the middle of the floor, where couples had begun drifting toward the doors, and held the open watch up beside the Palais clock. The brass hands gave a small shudder, then swept forward, and the first bar of the last waltz came in on time for once.