There’s a gummy bear on the table. Red. Fruity, the good kind. Sitting in a little ring where someone forgot their coaster, stripped the table of its varnish. The fan is turning its head. Back and forth, back and forth, circulating the only cool air in the room. There’s an awl next to it. An old one. One of my grandfather’s that perhaps belonged to his father, a trusty wooden thing wobbling with each turn of the fan. The wire cage around the spinning blades brushes the toes of my crossed leg. The whole picture somewhat framed by the faded spring green curtains.

Just outside those curtains, those leaded panes of glass trees are gently moving, the old white birch just behind the peak of the shed. Trees in the neighbors’ yards, trees that have stood for years, trees that draw the lightening during storms that makes the house shake and the power falter. And just beyond those trees, a small smear of gray, almost blue, but very muted, overcast and smudged.

The sun casts reflections off of the cage of the fan, and yet it is soft, nearly distorted, leaving the room lit but dusky. Barely does it reveal the yellow of things presumed white. Too many years of nicotine have robbed the room of purity. Even still the smell of stale smoke lingers in the corners of the eaves, in the grain of the wood, in the soul of the house. Every light switch, every tile, all of it looking like it could use a good baking soda toothpaste, mint flavored just like Grandma uses.

Is white really a true color anyway? Isn’t it the combination of all colors whereas black is the absence thereof. And yet white is purity, so that makes all colors purity. And then isn’t it ironic that this mixture makes pure in a world where so many have problems with pigments of ivory and ebony. Coffee and a rainbow of colors of cream. Reds and yellows to make orange. Orange and white to have peach. Put them all together and be amazed by the truth. Like it’s a miracle. And perhaps it is, but maybe not. Maybe its just truth, so simple it’s overlooked. It’s always the simple things that are overlooked, like the lonely red gummy bear sitting under the slowly spinning fan.