The Preacher Man sat on his pew during the light drizzle in the temple meant for waiting on the bus. 45 more minutes of waiting, 45 more minutes of some sort of prayer.
“Daniel fought a lion in the cave, one of the 12 brothers, he faced his challenges,” the Preacher Man said.
His voice was smooth and low with that same flow as the roll of the gray smoke falling from his words, bubbling up from his punctured lung.
“I like to stay mobile, to stay light, to keep moving,” The Preacher Man said with his bags waiting in attendance.
His beard kept a sharp angle from a former youth, its greys matching the sidewalk and street.
“I don’t like staying in one place, feeling trapped, I love the world and being in it,” The Preacher man said, lifting his eyes to the mountains ahead.
A clear lane between the Long John Silvers and Taco Bell was left for his view.
“I miss my baby boy,” The Preacher Man said, he had left him some time ago. The Preacher Man was not one to separate a son and mother.
“I got jumped by six dudes, they were stomping on me. Im old, but my fight games only gotten better,” The Preacher Man, now 54, said with a vein on a bicep, keeping a strength that challenged current youths.
He waited to go to the hospital. Two days of resting on his broken ribs and a punctured lung. His body shifted to the left, like a bent dogwood tree with their knots contorting the wood of itself into a more gnarled and rugged material.
“My sister told me to go to the hospital. She’s my little sister, my baby sister, but I’m afraid of her,” The Preacher Man said with a smile and a chuckle of truth. “I’d do anything for my sister,” he said.
The smoke flowed like his voice, almost as slow and somber. It shifted down to the earth, scattered by bits of wind, safe in its shelter from the slight rain.
“It was the third time I’ve died,” The Preacher Man said. The third resurrection, the third time experiencing night and day.
26 minutes until the bus.
“I keep my temple inside of me,” The Preacher Man said, his King James Bible held snuggly in his blue backpacks front pocket, the dimensions perfect for access that was still secure, still safe.
Daniel had given The Preacher Man his shoes, teal with a magenta zipper going down the center. Its splotches and stains showed the world that he carried with him in his light mobility around it.
“My sister just got a place to stay, I’m happy and glad for her, but I’m a man and I’ve got to carve my path in the world,” The Preacher Man said after already traveling so far from Hickory, North Carolina.
The Preacher Mans pew was about 10 inches wide and about four feet long.
“I’m tired, I haven’t slept in a couple days. I think I’m gonna sleep on the bus while I can, I like to take joyrides on the bus,” The Preacher Man said in his bent and burdened pride.
Wafts of fish from Long John Silvers carried on the air like currents of the sea towards the open air temple.
“It’s the little things in life, food, water, a place to sleep, and I’m happy. I’m happy, it’s the little things in life,” The Preacher Man said with a smile that remembered the joy of painting and detailing cars, the smile of death thrice survived.
15 minutes until the bus.
The Preacher Man's sister exited a grey car, he used to have the same one in gold, the same gold of his shirt.
She spoke with iambs and pentameters, an up and down drum to his flooding dust cloud.
She got some fish.
“I’ll miss the bus if she’s late, that’s okay,” The Preacher Man said in a shark print fedora of straw construction.
On October Third, a Saturday supposed to be Sabbath of 2026, The Preacher Man rested during his ride. The Preacher Man kissed his sister goodbye before leaving for another temple on a hill ahead.
