An Exercise in Visualizing the Invisible

Oth­er­wise, I found life onboard ship bor­ing as usual, so much so, that one day I was moved to paint what I was feel­ing after hav­ing been assigned to paint some pipes that ran up beside an exte­rior bulk­head along the star­board side of the hangar bay. Since these pipes had already been prepped, I needed only to apply the final coat of bat­tle­ship gray. Because a fresh coat of paint could eas­ily be ruined by the salt sea spray that con­stantly bathed the ship, I was given a can of paint, which con­tained agents to has­ten the dry­ing ’n’ hard­en­ing of the paint. As I approached the pipes to begin paint­ing, I was sud­denly, ver­bally accosted by my soul.

“What’re you doing?“ she asked.

“What does it look like I’m doin’?“ I replied rather rudely, for I was still upset with her over the inci­dent around the torpedo.

“Ya know,“ I added, “not only did ya make a fool outta me, but ya also got me into a lotta trou­ble, I didn’t appreciate.“

“I was only think­ing of you,“ she replied.

“Thinkin’ of me!“ I exclaimed. “If that’s what ya think of me, then I don’t need your help.“

“You never heed my warn­ings,“ she insisted.

“Warn­ings!“ I exclaimed. “What warnings?“

“I’ve told you,“ she con­tin­ued, “that you don’t belong here. And yet you con­tinue to ignore me.“

“What d’ya want me to do, walk on water?“ I asked her. “Obvi­ously, if I’d found the way out, I’d have taken it.“

“I am the way,“ she proclaimed.

I laughed. “If you’re the way, it’s no won­der I’m still stuck here,“ I con­cluded. “Why I can’t even see ya!“

“You’re so unimag­i­na­tive,“ she replied. “When I opened the door for you back in Tokyo, you sim­ply slammed it shut in my face.“

“And who do you think handed you for­give­ness when you reached out for it back in Yokuska?“ she asked.

“Then why don’t ya just tell me what to do?“ I scoffed.

“You don’t lis­ten!“ she exclaimed. “You don’t pay enough atten­tion to your imagination.“

“What imag­i­na­tion?“ I mumbled.

“Who do you think is talk­ing to you?“ she asked. “Is it not a prod­uct of your imagination?“

“I don’t know,“ I screamed out in anguish. “I don’t know who the hell you are.“

“Why don’t you try let­ting go of your­self, for just a moment,“ she hastily added, “and instead, try paint­ing me.“

“Paint you!“ I exclaimed. “How ridicu­lous! I’ve already told ya, I can’t see ya. So how the hell do ya expect me to paint you?“

“I know you can’t see me, but don’t worry about that for now,“ she said. “I’ll stand right here in front of you as you slap paint on my form.“

“This is insane,“ I replied. “What d’ya think my supe­ri­ors are gonna say when they see me wavin’ a paint brush around in midair?“

“They won’t know the dif­fer­ence,“ she responded. “I’ll stand right here in front of the pipes you’re sup­posed to paint. They’ll just see you paint­ing the pipes.“

“I don’t know about this,“ I said. “This all sounds so silly.“

“Come on,“ she prod­ded me.

When I waved a brush full of paint in her direc­tion, to dis­miss her, I was amazed by what I saw—gray paint actu­ally adher­ing to a form that’d pre­vi­ously been invis­i­ble to me. Giddy with excite­ment, I began to hastily fling paint in the direc­tion of the pipes, and smear it around with my brush. While she gig­gled and goaded me on, I worked like a mad­man to cover her invis­i­ble form with enough paint, so that I could see her. In fact, I’d got­ten so engrossed in paint­ing her, that I was totally obliv­i­ous of the crowd that’d gath­ered behind me, back towards the fan­tail, to watch as I con­tin­ued to fling paint at my invis­i­ble can­vas with the agility of an abstract artist. Only instead of build­ing up paint on a can­vas, in real­ity, I was build­ing up layer upon layer of paint on the pipes, until they looked like the trunks of some gnarled old tree. Just as I caught sight of the gray form of a woman stand­ing naked before me, I heard a grav­elly nasally voice shout out, “That’s enough, Dury.“

After tak­ing one last look at her, I spun around, right smack dab into the face of an angry First Class Boatswain’s Mate.

“You did it,“ my soul whis­pered in my ear as she van­ished. “You visu­al­ized me.“

“O, I’m so proud of you. I knew you could do it, if only you used your imag­i­na­tion,“ I heard her say as her voice gave way to the groans of the boatswain’s mate.

“Not bad for a novice, eh?“ responded I to his great displeasure.

“Go on down below ’n’ pass out laun­dry,“ he snarled.

Star­ing at me as if I were nuts, did they all quickly step aside to let me pass. Not a one of them said a word to me as I went below.