The room sparsely furnished, a thin mattress on a makeshift cot sits only inches from an uneven wooden table for one. A metal folding chair, as tilted as the table and slowly rusting away, is pushed to the corner. Cloudy water drips from the kitchenette’s sink of scuffed stainless steel.

Around rows of saintly icons, dingy walls peek in on the humble scene, the gaunt man kneeling in the middle of the floor. He faces the bed, putting his feet beneath the table. His head is bowed, hiding his sunken eyes in reverent shadow.

Shallow breaths ushering forth a whispered prayer shudder through his frail frame. A shirt as pale and worn as his skin clings about him, stuck to skin which is stuck to bone, all damp with the perspiration of a fervent summer day. His hands work around one another, grinding out salvation between bony fingers.

The setting sun sends its fingers, les doigts de Dieu, through a greasy window. Touched, he smiles. With a smile on cracked lips, he dies and slumps forward to salvation.