Realistic black and grey tattoo of a clock face with a teal eye on the forearm, with Roman numerals and clock hands around it.

Realistic eye and clock face on a forearm

Realism · Forearm · Mixed · Photo

A tattoo of a clock face with Roman numerals and hands, with a realistic eye with a teal iris and long lashes sitting across its centre. The eye and lashes are shaded with smooth grey tones and fine detail, while the clock numerals and hands use bolder black linework. Only the iris is coloured, so the rest of the design is in black and grey against the skin, shot close up on a dark background.

Realism Forearm Clock Eye Iris Eyelashes Roman numeral Clock hand

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The clock came off the side of the Big Top the week the council stopped renewing our pitch. Mr Hallam wanted it sold with the ticket booth, but I had wound that clock every dawn for nineteen years, so I climbed the ladder with a screwdriver and a tea towel and took it down myself. Its hands had stuck at ten to four since the winter the lions went.

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On the back of the dial, under the flaking paint, someone had stencilled an eye, teal as a swimming pool, with lashes drawn in soot. Madame Orla swore she painted it the night she read palms for half of Kent at sixpence a go. She said the eye watched the ring so the ring could not lie about its takings. Nobody believed her, but the takings did go missing less often when she sat in the booth.

Last night the rain got under the tarpaulin and the clock began to tick on its own, one slow beat for every empty seat. I sat on the sawdust with it in my lap and wound it back, hand over hand, until the minute hand jolted and found ten past nine. The old canvas creaked. Somewhere past the horse lines a child laughed at nothing at all.

This morning I hung the clock on a nail above the caravan door, face to the road, so the eye could keep watch for them coming back. Hallam's van pulled out at half seven and I didn't wave. The hands still said ten to four. I let them stay there, because there was no one left to be late for the show.