Realistic black and grey tattoo of an open pocket watch with Roman numerals and a shell on a forearm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Realistic pocket watch with shell on forearm

Realism · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A detailed pocket watch with Roman numerals, a chain and an ornate case sits at the centre of the design, with its hands showing the time. A shell and soft cloud shading appear behind and beside the watch. The shading is smooth and highly detailed, giving the watch a three-dimensional look against the skin.

Realism Forearm Pocket watch Clock Roman numeral Chain Shell Cloud

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The flour was still hanging in the light from the bulb when Ruth came in late, which meant nothing, because the watch on the nail above the proving racks had been ten minutes fast since my father last wound it. I set the first batch by it anyway. Bread doesn't care what the church clock says, only how long the dough has been left alone and whether the oven has come up to heat.

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The scallop shell lives on the windowsill beside the flour bins. My father brought it back from a Whitby front in 1971 and said it was the only sensible thing a man could carry in his pocket. Ruth asks why I never fix the watch. I tell her it keeps the right kind of time for a bakery, which is the time that gets the loaves out before the milk float and the first bus. She thinks I'm being soft. Maybe I am.

This morning I took it down to wind it and the back of the case came away in my hand. Tucked against the movement was a folded slip in his square capitals: HIGH WATER 4.52. Nothing else. I stood there with the oven ticking and the window still black, and I understood he had never been talking about the watch at all.

I left the hands where they were. At 4.52 the sky over the car park went the colour of weak tea, and I drew the first tray from the oven, the crusts crackling as they cooled in the cold air coming through the door.