Nine o'clock. Strip lights the length of the ceiling, two of them flickering
at the far end above rack four. Rubber, disinfectant, a fan somewhere.
The room holds no opinion whatsoever.

Nothing in here has met me before.
Not the bar, not the bench, not whoever is on the desk.
I have carried the same face through three rooms today.
This is the first one that did not already know what it was for.

The Book of the Ghost — Arrival 35:1