Traditional-style flash design of two swallows, a red rose, a red heart, a blue flower and a pocket watch, with a banner of lettering across the centre.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Swallows, heart and banner with pocket watch

Traditional · Colour · Flash

A colourful flash design showing two swallows, a red rose and a large red heart, with a blue five-petalled flower on the left and a brass pocket watch at the bottom. A cream banner with black lettering runs across the centre, and small stars and a sparkle motif fill the background. Bold black outlines, flat fills and soft shading give it a classic American traditional look on a plain beige background.

Traditional Neo-trad Swallow Heart Rose Flower Pocket watch Banner Star Sparkle

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

...and that's why I never sail the Thursday tide, not since the stranger came down the quay with his pocket watch running backwards," said Old Hal Pendry, knocking his pipe against the rail of the Drowned Anchor. "Thin man, coat too long in the sleeves, wanted passage to nowhere in particular. He carried that brass watch with more cogs than sense, and two slim tools like pen torches that hummed whenever he pointed them at the rigging. Paid in silver so warm it might've been in a pocket all day against his heart."

Keep reading

He kept the wheel himself that night, and the swallows came aboard at Dover and wouldn't leave, perched along the bowsprit like a row of worried clerks. Halfway across the Channel the sky split open and the Marigold's foremast went over the side with a crack like a rifle. The stranger stood up on the wet deck, grinning as if someone had told him a joke, tapped the watch twice and called out, "Allons-y!" Then every swallow lifted at once and wheeled through the rain, and the sea flattened under us like a sheet being smoothed by a hand.

When we looked round, he was gone, and the deck was dry in one neat circle, as if the storm had politely stepped around him. He left me the watch for safe keeping. It's been ticking the wrong way ever since. Every time I wind it I hear a voice at the door saying all of time and space, like a promise or a dare, and I've never once been certain which way he meant it.