Black and grey realism tattoo of a raven with a clock face on the upper chest and shoulder, with a small bird on the opposite shoulder.

Raven and clock across chest and shoulder

Realism · Shoulder · Black and grey · Photo

A large raven with ink splatter wings sits over a detailed clock face with Roman numerals, gears and faint lettering on the upper chest and shoulder. A smaller bird perched on the opposite shoulder is rendered in black with splatter detail and a touch of skin tone showing through. The work uses soft shading and high contrast in black and grey ink against a dark background.

Realism Shoulder Chest Raven Crow Bird Clock face Roman numeral Gear Ink splatter Pocket watch

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nan, the clock in the lobby of Hollins House has stopped again, and this time I don't think it's the damp. You'll remember the raven that came up from the bins at Eastgate the summer Mr Okafor's pigeons went. It's been living in the riser cupboard on the fourteenth floor since March, and last Tuesday I found it perched on the rim of the old station clock we salvaged when St Anne's came down, picking at the escapement as neatly as a pickpocket.

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I went up with a torch and a tin of sardines, which was a mistake, because now it thinks I'm its provider. It sat on the minute hand with its wings spread like two ruined umbrellas, ink splashed across the glass as if someone had flicked a brush at it from the stairwell. The Roman numerals ran round the face, IX to III, green with damp, all except the twelve, which Dev polished for the council inspection and never got round to finishing. Behind the glass the gears turned slow and brass-dull, and I could see the little copper wheel that used to drive the hands on St Anne's, the one Father Gillis swore had counted every christening in the parish.

I didn't shift it. I sat on the landing with the sardines until it hopped down and walked the length of the gear train, testing each tooth like a blind man reading braille. When it reached the great wheel it stopped, cocked its head at me, and the whole building went quiet for a second: the lifts, the boiler, the telly through the wall in 14C. Then the hands began to move again.

The council man comes Thursday with his clipboard and wants the thing binned. I've told him the clock keeps time for nobody now but the bird, and he'd do better to come up and see for himself. He wrote something down, though I'm not sure what. Love, Maureen.