Realistic colour tattoo on a woman's upper back showing pink roses, an anatomical heart, a pocket watch and blue-grey wings.

Roses, heart and pocket watch across a back

Realism · Back · Colour · Photo

A large colour tattoo covers much of the upper back and left shoulder. Pink roses sit on the left shoulder, while a red heart, a gold pocket watch with Roman numerals, gears and translucent blue-grey wings sit across the centre. The shading is smooth and detailed, with soft highlights and gradients on the wings and metal parts, and the image is framed from behind with the subject's hair and a red and white checked bra strap visible.

Realism Back Shoulder Rose Heart Pocket watch Clock Gear Wing Chain

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell,

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The Hendry girl came in again on Tuesday with her grandfather's watch, the one with the Roman numerals you said looked like a row of tiny fence posts. It had stopped at twenty past four. Mr Ardern didn't want to open the back. He said the mainspring had gone soft as bread and he wasn't risking the gears for a man who wanted it running by Sunday, so I sat at the bench under the lamp with moths knocking at the glass like they wanted in, and cleaned the escapement while he went across the road for his tea.

You'll laugh, but I found a rose pressed flat under the dial, brown at the edges and folded small. Someone had hidden it there years ago and forgotten. I put it back exactly where it was, as he'd have wanted, and thought of your mother's roses along the back wall, the ones you cut for church every Saturday and left on the step when you were late.

The watch went this morning. I wound it, held it to my ear, and it ticked as if it had never stopped, which is more than I can say for the shop since you left. Mr Ardern says I have steady hands for a boy who spends his evenings looking out of the window.

Come home at Whitsun if the fare allows. I'll keep the lamp lit and the escapement oiled, and if you send me the hour of your train I'll have the kettle on before the minute hand reaches it. Yours always, Tom