Black and grey realism tattoo of an open pocket watch with a chain and ornate scrollwork on the upper arm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Pocket watch with scrollwork on upper arm

Realism · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A realistic pocket watch with a chain and ornate filigree casing sits on the upper arm, with its white dial showing Arabic numerals. Smooth grey shading creates depth on the metal, and sweeping acanthus-style scrolls fill the lower part of the design. Two photographs show the same tattoo from slightly different angles, with the skin and tattoo filling most of each frame.

Realism Upper arm Pocket watch Clock Chain Scrollwork Filigree Numeral

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The watch had belonged to my uncle Ted, who timed the pickers on the Hollis orchard for forty years and never once let a ladder run past the hour. When he died it came to me in a biscuit tin with a folded handkerchief and a bent chain, and I carried it up the lane on the last Saturday in August because the Bramleys were dropping and nobody else would climb the north row.

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The dial was cream, the numerals black and a little crooked, and the hands had stopped at ten past four. I wound the crown on the gatepost and nothing happened. I held it to my ear the way he used to, and heard only wasps working the windfalls and somebody's transistor singing about a broken heart on the far side of the hedge.

I set the watch on the flat top of the wall at the end of the row, face to the sun, and picked until my forearms stung. The crates filled. The shadows lengthened across the grass and the light went thick and gold through the leaves, the way it does for about twenty minutes before the dew comes down.

When I finally looked over, the hands had moved. Not far, only a few minutes, but enough to show the thing had been running all along, waiting for someone to stand still beside it long enough to notice.