Verbal Portrait No. 3

In earlier posts, I have explored the idea of verbal portraiture. Verbal Portrait No. 1 and Verbal Portrait No. 2 describe a bookish lady and a troubled writer, respectively.

I encourage you to read the above portraits in full for proper context on this style, however, I empathize with the there-aren’t-enough-hours-in-the-day crowd. Below is an excerpt that briefly explains verbal portraiture:

From vivid descriptions of my most minute observations, I attempted to create a coherent verbal “image.” Like the pointillistic brushstrokes of Seurat, my words would obfuscate if read individually, but render clarity when taken as a whole. Hence, the idea of verbal portraiture was born.

A Verbal Portrait is a specific, hyper-detailed description of the reality an individual sees in front of him/her.

Verbal Portrait of a Seafaring Skipper

He was the last of a dying breed, a rough and tumble sort of fellow. A barnacle firmly affixed to the brisk vessel of time, the rapid passing of years determined to pry him off the world’s shining hull. He was of yesteryear, his confidence and competence eroded by the dual ferocity of time and the sea.

His tried and tested vessel easily cut through the undulating rollers. Her bow slid silently, cautiously through unfamiliar waters as a lighthouse’s beam scans the inky darkness. Her sails stood proud, stiff, tall, billowing: the exact opposite of their skipper.

His knotted beard was a blend of brownish-yellow tobacco stains and crumbs, detritus, debris from meals scarfed down long ago. He often exhaled breaths reeking of seaweed and brine. These notes clung to him as stale drink clings to the drunkard, as sawdust does to the carpenter.

Years at sea had leathered his face and callused his hands. His sun-spotted skin teemed with different hues, melanin coaxed out by the sun’s light.

That same timeless sun now gently glinted off his smudged, salt-stained glasses. He resembled the fragile spectacles: some worse for the wear, barely held together by a cobbled patchwork of things. Over the years, he had mimicked the water’s rising and falling, seeking his own level.

With each sunrise came rebirth and opportunity. The water resplendent with the sun's dancing rays, the ocean a fluid prism that colored his world. Nevertheless, all euphoria is followed by depression. What goes up…Down. Much like the waves of the sea, of life.

His soundtrack was the haunting clang of the harbor’s buoy and the nerve-shedding keys of seagulls. Darting and diving every which way, the stormy petrels scrounged for the skipper’s refuse: a discarded bit of fish or crumb of stale bread. Salivating and squawking with sharp beaks, their incessant caws rang out as cacophony of hunger and desperation. With gulls as his interlocutors, he didn’t speak as much as grunt. Years alone at sea had slowly eroded what words and phrases once came from his mouth. The solitude of his craft had stolen his gift of gab.

He sported a cummerbund of blubber; his paunch straining against the rubberized material of his shock yellow slicker. Stiff with age, it more contained his many rolls of flab than kept him dry. Like his world, its color had taken on a tired, blanched look. Ancient binoculars hung loosely, heavily from his neck. These were his yoke. Heavy, but necessary.

On land, he was a derelict.

At sea, a decrepit deity.

A broken man and his trusted ship.

From a distance, it was impossible to say which was which.

One mere speck upon God’s deluged, inundated plains.

Of the sea and so too in it.