Shattering pocket watch with chain

Black and grey · Flash

A pencil-style drawing of an open pocket watch with its case splintering into angular fragments that fly outward. A heavy chain loops from the watch ring and runs across the lower half of the image, ending where the ground cracks beneath it. The shading is in greyscale with strong contrasts and a plain white background.

Pocket watch Chain

Find an artist for this

Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell, the lamp clock stopped again on Tuesday, a quarter past three in the morning, and I had to climb the tower with the spare key clamped in my teeth the way Father taught us. The weight chain had run down to its last link and hung over the gallery rail like a dead thing. I wound it back up by lantern light while the wind leaned on the glass.

Keep reading

The storm came in hard off the Minch after that, and by four the lantern room was singing. One pane went first, then the rest, so that the whole north face blew inward in a spray of splinters that rattled across the iron floor and skittered down the stair. I sheltered under the lamp housing with my arms over my head and felt the cold come straight through the gap. When the light steadied I found the old brass watch Father kept in the clock case, its lid sprung open and its face cracked into a web of silver lines, the hands still pointing at a time no one has troubled to set.

I meant to send for a glazier. Instead I sat on the stair with the watch in my palm and thought about how many ships this tower has guided by its light, and how little of that work has ever been seen. So I am leaving the broken panes where they lie for now. The mainland boats say the shards throw the beam out in strange little flashes when the weather turns, and the fishermen have started steering by them.

I wound the chain to its mark this morning, and the clock is ticking again, a little faster than it should. I have not reset the watch. Tell Mother the fog has lifted and the gulls are back on the rocks.

Your loving brother, Tom