Outside of my lodgings I was a simple clerk, and carried with me the sorrows and joys of many happenings in my time. The world was changing. The smokestacks battled the trees for the breadth of the open sky.
Sometimes my spirit asked about that world. I told him.
"Little has changed," was his declaration. "Humanity still ails from the same disease."
"And what is that?"
"I thought once that it was life," he said. "But I see now that it is progress."
I frowned. Changing times had claimed me, whatever they were. A man of Progress must defend his creed.
"Progress and Life are married," I said. "They are in useful matrimony."
"Then they should seek useful divorcement."
"We are in constant evolution," I insisted heedlessly. "Always in pursuit of the future. Is that not a fair thing?"
But it was to no avail.
Sometimes life was poetry to him, and other instances, he pitied me for writing it.
YOU ARE READING
Spectral Conversations
General FictionMy name is Phineus. I have recorded here, for your enlightenment, the converse between the fellow with whom I shared a modest lodging. He I roomed with was remarkable in two aspects: First, he was dead. A wraith lacking a body. Second, he was se...
