Molly Notkin's party; Joelle's overdose
‘—so-called phantom, but real. And mobile. First the spine. Then not the spine but the right eye-socket. Then the old socket’s fit as a fiddle but the thumb, the thumb doubles me over. It won’t stay put.’ […] ‘It has a mobile cunning, a kind of wraith- or phantom-like—’
Context
Overheard party chatter at Molly Notkin's Very Last Party while Joelle drifts veiled toward the bathroom overdose: an unnamed guest's mobile phantom pain, "wraith- or phantom-like" in its cunning. Wraith vocabulary seeded in idle mouths, in the apartment where JOI's mirror still hangs.