Gately, the wraith, and the figurants — "Gately begins to conclude it’s not…"
Gately begins to conclude it’s not impossible that the garden-variety wraith on the heart monitor, though not conventionally real, could be a sort of epiphanyish visitation from Gately’s personally confused understanding of God, a Higher Power or something, maybe sort of like the legendary Pulsing Blue Light that AA founder Bill W. historically saw during his last detox, that turned out to be God telling him how to stay sober via starting AA and Carrying The Message. The wraith smiles sadly and says something like Don’t we both wish, young sir. […] of course there’s also the possibility that the tall slumped extremely fast wraith might represent the Sergeant at Arms, the Disease, exploiting the loose security of Gately’s fever-addled mind, getting ready to fuck with his motives and persuade him to accept Demerol just once, just one last time, for the totally legitimate medical pain.
Context
Gately's theology of the haunting: the only frames he owns are AA frames, so the wraith must be either Higher Power (Bill W.'s Pulsing Blue Light) or the Disease softening him up for Demerol. The wraith's sad "Don't we both wish" — declining the God slot — is as close as the scene comes to an ontological confession, and the Demerol reading keeps the haunting welded to the addiction plot: this ghost might be a relapse in progress.