Redemption

Artist's Impression (Old Version)

From what I understood of the phone call of the Naval base commander that came in around eleven this morning, he wanted several of our best painters to come and work on a ship they had docked along with a couple of skilled photographers.

And while this was quite the unusual request of the US Navy, it wasn't atypical, they would often call over professional painters for whenever they wanted a mural to give the men a reminder of what it was they were fighting for or in a less favorable scenario, a pin-up for the lads to look at.

But for this specific assignment, they asked for those most skilled in detail and texturing, in making things look as realistic as possible hence why there were only nine of us sent to see to the task.

Several of those among us questioned why the detail would need to be so specific having only worked on more simplistic pieces requested by the navy in the past, though I exempted myself from their conversation, choosing instead to focus on the work ahead and some possible ideas of what that work may be.

But even I must admit that I wasn't expecting to be working on a veritable ghost ship, neither was anyone else judging by the way they each stood there slack-jawed and silent.

We asked for the man in charge of overseeing this operation and while the man wasn't there personally, his supervisor was who explained to us that our job was to observe the outside of the ship and try to replicate as much of the decay and rust of the original structure onto the final rebuilt and refurbished version, something about keeping it's aesthetic.

To all the rest, this was a very confusing and nearly aggravating job, one that didn't seem to bring much joy or even safety but to me, it was like being a kid in a candy store.

I quite enjoyed painting realism and using this skill of mine to the best of it's ability, more than once I was asked to paint a lovely image of a house and a tree in fall with a little nearby brook for a family to hang in their house or the rigging of a ship girl so that they could pull off a certain Halloween costume.

It wasn't often that I was able to or even allowed to do a nice blend of both aspects and so to be presented with such a large and great canvas to work with, I was instead smiling rather than grumbling like my colleagues were, taking great pleasure at the sight of so much opportunity and ideas coming to me faster than I could stop to ponder them.

I took the initiative, something I also rarely did, and asked if the photographers had done their work yet and could have some of the pictures delivered to the office to which he replied that they had and already were working on getting them developed, and that pictures they took would be both in black and white as well as color.

From there I walked around the ship, slowly building its layout in my mind, taking note of every chipped piece of metal and dulled paint, a ship like this was rarely found in a lifetime and the opportunity to work on one was not a chance to pass up to an artist like myself and I was going to enjoy every bit of it.

Eventually though, I ran out of canvas to examine from the hard concrete ground and so I asked one of the men operating how one would go about getting on deck.

He laughed for a bit and questioned me if I was sane in the head, but he soon calmed down and showed me the right path, a rather nerve-racking ride on a small platform suspended by a crane which I had to share with another worker.

The platform was slowly raised from the ground and I clutched tightly to the metal pole while the other man watched me trying and failing to hide a smile from his face as we were raised higher in the air until we were about even with the deck.

It was here were the scattered thoughts that occupied my mind were halted momentarily, the deck itself was nearly in the same state as the rest of the ship save for randomly placed wooden crates and collapsed lifeboats save for this massive and strange vehicle that occupied a place vacant of all those I just mentioned.