Character Sketch

I had to write a character sketch to be reviewed by my fellow Creative Writing group on Futurelearn. It was quite an easy one for me. I just watched my husband sitting at the table and embellished here and there. The latter part was pure fabrication, sorry Dehon, it's not really you, you just gave me a few ideas. :)


Character Sketch

He sat at the kitchen table, a mug of coffee at his elbow, the paper spread out before him as he scanned the day’s news, his dark eyes squinting beneath heavy eyebrows. He licked the tip of a calloused finger and turned the  page over whilst scratching at the dark growth on his face. He was trying to grow a beard but it came on awkwardly, hugging the underside of his chin, proceeding down his neck like a dark fungus against his sallow skin. A moustache sat sparsely upon his thin upper lip, dark and wiry like the bristles on a wild pig.

When people remarked on his changed appearance he would remark “It’s for charity” but he didn’t give to Cancer Research. The mere sight of someone collecting caused him to quicken his step or cross the street. He packed his own bags at the supermarket checkout.

 A large man, six foot two in his stocking feet, he carried a little extra weight across the middle due to a fondness for porter and warm cans of ale swallowed quickly with friends outdoors in the turf shed as they discussed the weather and the next day’s birds.

He dressed in the hidden colours of winter; olives, dark greens and browns, real tree camouflage. He was a shooter, a hunter of pheasant, duck and every wild thing. He walked the length and breadth of the county leaving no hedge or copse un-plundered, his spaniel dancing in and out of the frosted fields, nose twitching, at the ready.

He wasn’t a family man. His proudest possession was not the bright smiling faces of his children, the achievement of their small hopes and dreams but the Webley and Scott 700 shotgun he kept locked in the gun cabinet at the back of his wardrobe.