Black and grey realism tattoo of a top hat, shaded rose, pocket watch, key and two butterflies across a person's upper back.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Top hat, rose and pocket watch on upper back

Realism · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A large black and grey tattoo covers part of the upper back and shows a top hat, a shaded rose, a pocket watch, a key and a playing card. The shading uses soft greys and strong dark outlines to give the rose and hat depth. Two butterflies sit above the rose, and the composition is arranged in a loose diagonal across the shoulder blade.

Realism Back Top hat Rose Pocket watch Key Butterfly Playing card Clock

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The baker's wife kept the key to the back door on a red string round her neck, and she would not give it to the new man from over the river, though he asked her every morning for a week before the frost came. He had a hat too tall for the doorway and a pocket watch he wound three times before he would trust it. Nobody in Hollin Cross had ever seen a man so careful about the hour.

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Each night the oven had to be lit before the cock crowed, and each night the watch ran a little fast, so the loaves came out early and the rose-iced buns burnt at the edges. The baker's wife said the watch was to blame. The new man said the watch was honest and the oven was sulking. They quarrelled about it in the yard with flour on their hands, and a playing card, the knave of hearts, blew off the sack and stuck to the wet step.

On the coldest morning, two butterflies came in through the broken shutter, which they had never done in winter, and settled on the warm brick above the oven. The man stood very still and watched them. When he turned round, the watch had stopped at a quarter to four. He wound it, and it went on, and the woman noticed he had not once taken off his hat.

Before the sun was up she gave him the key. He opened the door onto a dark the colour of a rose gone grey at the edges, set the first tray down on the step where the card still lay, and went back inside to count the loaves.