Fine line black tattoo of Roman numerals arranged in a clock face on the inner forearm, shown in a black and white photograph.

Roman numeral circle on forearm

Fine line · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A close photograph of a forearm and hand with a small circular tattoo of Roman numerals, arranged to match the positions of a clock face. The numerals are drawn in thin, crisp black linework with no shading, and the empty centre leaves plenty of negative space. The image is black and white against a textured white wall, with the wearer's torso and dark trousers cropped at the edges.

Fine line Lettering Forearm Roman numeral Clock Circle Numeral

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Maureen, The clock in the lobby of Ashdown House has stopped again, and Mr Pryce from the council rang this morning to say they'll take it down when the scaffolding goes up in March. I told him the numerals were cast in 1968 by a firm in Bolton and nobody makes them like that anymore. He said a digital display would tell residents the time and the lift temperature. I said the residents know the time. What they want to know is whether the lifts will ever stop sticking between floors.

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I've been up on the roof every evening this week with a flask, watching the cranes over the ring road. Last night a lad from flat 14 climbed up after me, carrying a torch he didn't need. He asked what I was counting and I said the days until Pryce gives up. He laughed as if I'd made a joke. He showed me a sketch on his phone of the lobby clock, the twelve numerals drawn in a neat ring with the middle left empty, and said he meant to have it copied in ink for his gran, who worked the switchboard here before there were any flats at all.

I told him the lobby clock has had no hands since the Seventies. The council never replaced them, so every soul who looked up there made their own time, and nobody ever complained about being late for it. He went quiet, then said he'd come down in the morning and photograph it before the scaffolding hid it. I think I'll tell Pryce the clock is a fixture, the same as the stairwell and the smell of the bins.

Love, Dennis