Dearest
by H. Beam Piper
"Get him to tell you about this invisible playmate of his." A completely bizarre grindhouse classic from Weird Tales, Vol. 43, No. 3, March 1951. Colonel Hampton sipped his whiskey slowly, then puffed on his cigar. "No, this pair were competent liars," he replied. "A good workmanlike liar never makes up a story out of the whole cloth; he always takes a fabric of truth and embroiders it to suit the situation." He smiled grimly; that was an accurate description of his own tactical procedure at the moment. "I hadn\'t intended this to come out, Doctor, but it happens that I am a convinced believer in spiritualism. I suppose you\'ll think that\'s a delusional belief, too?" "Well...." Doctor Vehrner pursed his lips. "I reject the idea of survival after death, myself, but I think that people who believe in such a theory are merely misevaluating evidence. It is definitely not, in itself, a symptom of a psychotic condition."