Realistic colour tattoo of an hourglass with a lit candle in the top bulb and a bare tree in the bottom bulb, on the upper arm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Realistic hourglass with candle and tree

Realism · Upper arm · Mixed · Photo

A realistic hourglass sits on the upper arm, with a brass-style frame and dark finials. The top bulb holds a glowing candle in amber and gold tones, while the bottom bulb shows a bare, leafless tree on a grey ground. Soft shading and highlights give the glass and metal a three-dimensional look against the grey background of the skin.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Maureen, the lift has been out since Tuesday, so every bag of shopping I carry up to the fourteenth floor feels like a personal insult from the council. Mr Dunne downstairs gave me the thing in a shoebox this morning, saying the caretaker's flat was being cleared and he didn't want it going in the skip. It's an hourglass, the proper sort with brass rails and black knobs on top, and the bottom bulb holds a dead tree standing in grey dust like a photograph of February.

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The top bulb is the one that worries me. Someone has left a candle standing in there, amber from the light coming through, its wick still black at the tip. I keep holding it up to the landing window where the streetlamp used to be, turning it slowly so the sand slides and the flame seems to lean. I tried to work out whether the candle was lit or waiting to be, and I couldn't decide, which is probably the most honest thing I've thought all month.

Last night the power cut out again and the whole block went black. I sat on the stairs with a torch in my teeth and listened to the neighbours counting floors in the dark. Somebody on nine was singing the same two lines of a hymn over and over. I didn't go down to find out who. I lit the candle I keep in the drawer for emergencies and watched it through the glass, and for once the sand seemed to be running the right way, down into the tree, the way it always meant to.

Come up at Easter if the lift is fixed. Bring a bag of nothing heavy. I'll set the hourglass on the windowsill facing the car park and we can time how long it takes Dunne to wheel his bin out. Love, Pat.

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