visitors raze jess is the first one to show. she sits on the couch and tells me about her new job. she's clean again. for as long as that lasts this time. then it's a woman whose uncle smiles at us from the recliner i favour while we catch up, though we've never met before. a cop drops in on me after i hide a military pistol beneath a blanket on that same chair. he has a look around. finds a black paperback called "the darkness". a police procedural bathed in blood. he dusts for prints in case i commit a future crime and leaves without finding anything. a handwritten instruction manual is less about the gun than the demons that dogged the person who owned it before me. the last page is torn out so only the margin remains. i read the roots of a few words with no soil to settle in. outside two people speak of a dog that wouldn't stop barking. they say they named him barky. i wonder what they'd call me if they heard me howl. 261111 what's it to you? who go blather from