He got up from the bed holding the Bible held in one hand, closed with his finger marking the verse and walked directly towards the little house’s kitchen and screened back porch. He wore only the cut-off jeans and faded grey tee-shirt he’d worn the last three of days for both work and sleep.He stopped on the back porch long enough to step into a pair of sandals and then walked out into the cool morning air. The sky was clear and the stars brightening with the lowering of the moon and its fading light. There was no breeze, but the occasional flash of lighting, far over the horizon to the west, meant someone was getting rain.
As he walked across the sandy yard to the garage he continued to whisper the verse. He pulled open one of garage’s two wooden doors and effortlessly laid his hand on the light switch, having reached for that spot to turn on that light for 30 years. He stepped into the strong odor of paint from his week of work, and when the light illuminated the interior, he was again pleased and almost a little surprised at the magnitude of his completed task.
The Ford Econoline beamed like polished white porcelain. Every inch was smooth with a layer of Bright White paint. The dark windows in the front and rear and the passenger and driver doors were struggling black holes, pushing against the overbearing white, trying not to be swallowed up by white. There had never been a more pure canvas, he thought.He walked all around the vehicle, opened both garage doors, and stopped to lean on the workbench to gaze at the broad panel on the driver’s side, tying to see something that was not there, yet.