Black and grey realism style tattoo of a pocket watch with Roman numerals, wings and a banner reading 15-04-2017, on the forearm.

Pocket watch with wings and date banner

Realism · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A pocket watch with Roman numerals and hands sits at the centre of the design, framed by feathered wings and a leaf. A ribbon banner across the lower half reads 15-04-2017. The shading is smooth and tonal in black and grey, with soft highlights on the watch case and bold outlines on the banner and wings.

Realism Traditional Forearm Pocket watch Clock Wing Banner Date Roman numeral Leaf Feather

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The watch came across the counter wrapped in a handkerchief that smelled of coal smoke, and Mr Hallam did not unwrap it for three days. He said a case that had sat in a drawer for years wanted patience, not tweezers. Each morning I found him at the bench with the lid open, studying the dial the way other men read a letter they already know by heart.

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The case was silver worn soft at the edges. Someone had engraved a pair of wings across the back, and a leaf had been pressed into the hinge so long ago that its veins showed through the metal like fern in a pavement crack. Hallam ran his thumb over the feathers and said the maker had been either a romantic or a man who had never once been on time.

On the fourth morning he eased the movement out with a little brass key and tilted it to the window. A slip of paper had been folded behind the balance wheel, so thin it had gone the colour of weak tea. Written on it in pencil were the figures 15-04, and beneath them a year I will not set down here, because Hallam asked me not to. He read it twice, then folded it back exactly as it had been.

He wound the watch that afternoon, one careful turn at a time, and set the hands by the church clock across the street. The second hand stepped forward with a small dry click, then another. He shut the lid, dropped the watch into my palm and said, Time doesn't mind who winds it, only that somebody does. I put it in my waistcoat pocket, and I have been listening to it ever since.