Phantom

I caught a glimpse of the phantom sitting behind the wheel.

The first revolt is against the supreme tyranny of theology, of the phantom of God. As long as we have a master in heaven, we will be slaves on earth.

The Phantom slowly, gravely, silently, approached.

Thrice round the neck with longing I essayed / to clasp the phantom in a wild delight; / thrice, vainly clasped, the visionary shade / mocked me embracing, and was lost to sight, / swift as a winged wind or slumber of the night.

Bratislav, the Croatian-descent dog owner of Rafa and Chino, does believe in souls and spirits, in some ways. On the 20th of October of 2012, with two leashes in hand, Bratislav the vampiric baron phantom struts approaching along the Halloween-like sidewalk, and then we have a conversation near the dilapidated purple-leaved tree in the neighbour Bruce's yard, here on Lulu Island. Yes, he says, he believes in souls and spirits and each kind is in a human body. I tell him that in some religions, people believe in multiple souls and spirits inside a body and to complicate matters, they may be "fluid" in nature. Bratislav thinks that I am like a Hispanic, but I imbue in him the notion of at least some Eastern influence inside of me. I take a pseudo-scientific turn and tell him that the "soul-spirit structure" may be really complicated and may have many components like a chandelier does with different gems and crystals.

The phantom was gone.

We idealize everybody’s thinking, and even our own access to reasons, blithely attributing phantom bouts of clever reasoning to ourselves after the fact.

Elon Musk has been courting antisemites because he knows as long as people are distracted by phantom Jewish conspiracies, they won't be focusing on his immense wealth and power.

The right loves its phantom enemies.

I saw a phantom cat.