Gately, the wraith, and the figurants (p. 837)

quote

He wonders what something as brief as a car-horn-honk sounds like to a figurant that has to sit still for three weeks to be seen. Wraith, not figurant, Gately meant, he corrects himself. He’s lying here correcting his thoughts like he was talking.

Context

Gately's vocabulary slips: wraith and figurant have already fused in his head, the scene's whole equation performed as a malapropism. The self-correction — editing thoughts like speech — is the brain-voice rule working on him from the inside.

Quoted from

Scene 162: gately wraith figurants

In anthology

Ghosts and Wraithstexture