Black and grey realism tattoo of a skull and ornate pocket watch with feathered wings on the upper arm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Skull and pocket watch with wings

Realism · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A shaded skull sits beneath a detailed pocket watch with an ornate face, numerals and a small figure perched on the case. Large feathered wings spread behind the watch and fade into the background. The work is in black and grey with smooth gradients and high contrast, and the watch and skull fill most of the frame.

Realism Upper arm Skull Pocket watch Wing Clock face Numeral Feather

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Mr Pellow has paid for the back room until Michaelmas, yet he has not come down to breakfast since Tuesday, and the watch he keeps on the washstand has stopped at twenty to four. I wound it twice this morning and it stopped again, the little winged figure on its lid staring at me as if I had done something wrong. Your father would have put his shoulder to the door by now. I am writing instead, Edwin, because you were always the one who could climb the drainpipe.

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You will remember the skull Mr Pellow brought in off the shingle last March, the one he said had been a sailor's and was polished by the sea into something almost handsome. He never said where the watch came from. It was a heavy silver thing with a face full of black numerals and a gilt scroll across the dial like a signature in a language nobody reads. He carried it in his waistcoat pocket and checked it before every meal, as though the boarding house might serve dinner early without him.

Last night the gulls were screaming over the harbour wall and I could not sleep, so I went up with the spare key. The bed was made. The window stood open to the wet air. On the sill lay the watch, face up, and beside it a tide table folded to Tuesday with the high water circled in pencil at twenty to four in the afternoon. The wind had got in and turned the pages, and the blue drapes lifted like wings.

I put the watch to my ear. Nothing, then a tick, then another, steady as a heartbeat. Pinned beneath it was a card in his cramped hand: Tell the harbour I kept my appointment. I have left the key in the door and the kettle on. Come home before the next tide, Edwin, and bring the rope.