the psalm (iii)

He reached into the cabinet over the workbench and pulled down a can of coffee and with water from a gallon jug under the bench started a pot of coffee in an old but operating coffeemaker sitting on one end of the bench. As it began to drip and he continued to say the verse out loud, over and over, he walked slowly around the van again, reaching out over and over to stroke the sides. He’d step in close to better see the surface, then back away. It had taken a week to paint the van. Aside from all the prep work and the post work removing miles of tape from the windows, there was all the painting. Lots of painting. Seven coats of paint. It took that to completely cover the inscriptions, the one to be replaced.

If only the van were a big blackboard he could just erase it and write the next message, but that would be easy. That would not require the labor, the time, the slow and methodical process of readying the canvas, performing the purification, and then inscribing the message with care and process, always conscious of the holy power of each letter, of each word, every phrase, the complete passages.

“I’m going to need a lot of red and orange for the flames licking up and around Daniel’s friends,” he said out loud, raising his arms in the direction of the leaping flames. “Going to need really hot colors, reds and yellow and shadows of orange, thick bands of fire and snapping tentacles reaching up.”

He dropped his arms down, then raised his right hand, pointed his finger straight into the near silk surface of the van’s wall, and spoke softly.

“But for you, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and for you, you son of the gods...for you there will be only blue, four honest shades of cool,” he said, pouring a cup of coffee, feeling the heat of the cup in his cool palms.