Smoke Ghost & Other Apparitions (2001) - Plot & Excerpts
There's altogether too much broadcasting going on these days, by wave, newsprint and heaven knows what subtler avenues of approach to the human mind. I could sum it all up in one word horror. But that doesn't mean much by itself. Besides, it would let you explain it away as a neurotic delusion, aftermath of the near nervous breakdown I had in 1946, when I quit my desk job with OSS. Though why anyone shouldn't have a nervous breakdown these days, with the whole world rushing hypnotized into the mouth of doom, is more than I can see. At any rate "ridiculous neurotic delusion" is the explanation favored by most of the friends of the Simes – one syllable, you know, rhymes with limes. They delight in telling each other how without any word of warning I walked away from Lavinia in the midst of a sight-seeing tour of Chicago and refused ever to see her again. Which is completely accurate incidentally. They all think I behaved outrageously. All of them, that is, except Mrs. Grotius. When I met her afterwards she said, "Well, Ken, at least you won't go the way of Conners Maytal and Fritz Nordenfelt and Clive Maybrick and René Coulet and the other nice young men Lavinia was engaged to." I didn't want to go into it with Mrs.
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