Colour tattoo of brass-toned clockwork gears, a clock face with Roman numerals and two winged panels, placed across a person's upper back.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Steampunk gears and wings on a back

Neo-trad · Back · Colour · Photo

The tattoo shows a clock face with Roman numerals at the top, surrounded by interlocking cogs and two wing-like panels with ribbed structure and scrolled edges. The linework is bold and dark, with detailed shading that gives the metal parts a three-dimensional, aged brass look. Ochre, gold and brown tones dominate, and the design is centred across the upper back with two inset close-up photographs above it.

Neo-trad Back Gear Clock Wing Roman numeral Cog

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Wilf,

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The Brassworks clock came down off the market hall on Tuesday, and I have been sitting on the steps of the old lamp shop ever since, trying to decide whether to tell you what Mr Pell found inside the case. The XII had worn so thin that the men from the council wanted it melted for scrap, but he climbed up with a lamp in his teeth and a stepladder borrowed from the vicarage. He says the escapement is still sound, and that somebody in the 1870s cut every cog by hand, one tooth at a time, then signed the back plate with a tiny drawn wing.

I went up with him on Thursday. The wheels were stiff with grease gone to amber, and the great drive wheel turned only when I pressed my thumb against a spoke and leaned. Something clicked behind the dial, like a held breath let go. Mr Pell said the mechanism had been waiting for someone to ask it to move, and I laughed at him, but I did not laugh much after that. The hands swung round to a quarter past four and stopped there, as if they had an opinion about us.

So I am writing to ask whether you will come up from Leeds on Saturday and help me winch the wings back onto the hall roof. Bring the good oil. Bring your father's spanner. And if the clock starts again while we are standing under it, do not panic, because I am told it only ever does that when it has decided to take someone somewhere.

Yours in grease, Marjorie