The neighbor was smoking his pipe next door at his pool again, infuriating Tom Winstaff. He lowered his binoculars. He'd told Eldridge a dozen times over the past years that he was allergic to tobacco, yet the old man scoffed and persisted in smoking. "You may not approve of smoking, Winstaff," Eldridge had said, "but a rare allergy like that would make your eyes water, your tongue swell, and your nose run, yet your only symptom is anger. Our houses are 150 yards apart, and the wind is blowing my way; you can't possibly smell it. It's no allergy — it's sanctimonious hysteria."

Winstaff had trudged angrily back to his immaculate home on its manicured three-acre lawn. It was a showplace, nestled in a neighborhood of similar estates widely spaced. He looked at his house with pride but stopped walking. Was that soot on his brick exterior? Eldridge's smoke was staining his house! He rushed inside and called a professional pressure-washing service.

Eldridge maintained a ritual, smoking only at night by his pool, and Winstaff was sure he could smell it whenever he tried to enjoy his own lawn and garden. He could feel sticky nicotine stains even on the petals of his prize garden mums, and he stayed inside to avoid the stench. Furious that he employed a handpicked crew to maintain perfect landscaping yet couldn't even step outside because of his neighbor's selfishness, he believed the sun was dimmed by Eldridge's lingering cloud of pollution wafting over the entire neighborhood and inundating every breeze.

He began to smell it inside as well. Despite spraying air freshener — which he bought by the case — into every corner of every room, he could sense it everywhere, even on his tailored suits and permeating his $120 haircut. "Can you smell it?" he asked his hairdresser, Alphonse, during his last trim, but Alphonse pretended ignorance. "I don't smell anything but your shampoo, Mr. Winstaff," he had said, the lying liar. Eldridge must have bribed him. He made a note to find someone more trustworthy.

Winstaff came from a pedigreed family possessing elevated olfactory sensitivity. They never tolerated tobacco in any form; he could detect the slightest whiff of smoke from any distance and had been subjected to Eldridge's floating filth for the entire three years he had lived here. Watching through his binoculars every evening as Eldridge sat at his pool and smoked his pretentious little silver-banded pipe, Winstaff spluttered and swore impotently, raging, increasingly frustrated as his blood pressure made his hands shake and his bitterness shrouded his peripheral vision.

he believed the sun was dimmed by Eldridge's lingering cloud of pollution

He considered driving Eldridge from the neighborhood by poisoning his lawn or populating it with copperheads, but he didn't want his own property value to suffer or the snakes to migrate into his yard. Besides, Eldridge was a resourceful old coot and a retired trial lawyer; he would surmise the source of any mischief.

Winstaff only rarely left his house, stewing indoors like a pressurized Mason jar of overripe tomatoes. Ivy League educated and financially independent, he ran no companies because of the cologne and perfume worn by people in offices, almost as reprehensible as tobacco. He'd given up on his country club because some members smoked cigars on the golf course, and though he did not golf himself, he could smell it on them when they sat at the bar, and his multiple bribes to all the right people had failed to establish a property-wide non-smoking policy. He seldom went to his favorite restaurants because he observed staff smoking outside the kitchen doors, and complaints to management accomplished nothing.

He couldn't even take walks around his neighborhood because other people walked their pets, and he found them repulsive, too. He posted signs in his front yard near the sidewalk declaring it a no-pets and no-smoking zone and was enraged when the police refused to take action against a neighborhood kid walking a dog past his house.

But animals and perfume were more tolerable than tobacco. One night, he was again watching as Eldridge relaxed at his pool, puffing on his stupid pipe and reading, and after years of torment, his infinite outrage somehow reached its limit. He slammed his binoculars on the table. He exploded from the back door and ran across the yards to again confront Eldridge.

"No more!" he yelled as he approached. "This behavior must stop! My house reeks of your noxious tobacco."

his multiple bribes to all the right people had failed to establish a property-wide non-smoking policy.

"Why don't you have a seat so we can discuss it, neighbor?" said Eldridge. "Here, I'll even put my pipe down. It's beautiful October weather, isn't it? Perfect for outside. How about a beer? I've got a cooler right here."

"Beer? It figures you would drink beer. And that pipe stinks whether it's lit or not," growled Winstaff, opening the iron gate to the pool enclosure and pulling out his Armani handkerchief to hold over his nose and mouth. "I can't endure any more of your smoke. I want you gone. Sell me your house. I'll give you 25% over market value just so I can have it torn down."

"You want to tear down my house? I couldn't permit that," said Eldridge, politely standing to talk. "My wife loved this place. She'd rise from her grave if I let that happen."

"Did she die from your secondhand smoke? I hope she suffered," said Winstaff. "You smokers are so stupid and narcissistic and self-indulgent that you'd kill everyone around you just to suck down another lungful."

Eldridge gazed solemnly at his neighbor, picked up his pipe, and lit it. "Ooze along home, now, little worm. I'm going to continue enjoying my pipe, and I'm sure you don't want to be contaminated."

Winstaff's eyes bulged from his head in apoplectic fury. He sprang forward and shoved Eldridge into the pool, pipe and all.

Eldridge swam to the side and placed his pipe on the edge. "My wife gave me this pipe on our 30th anniversary. It's my most precious possession. I can overlook much of your abuse, but not this. Enjoy the assault conviction and the aromatic characteristics of a jail cell."

"You want to see assault?" cried Winstaff. He grabbed the long-poled leaf-skimmer from its hanger and looped the net over Eldridge's head. He put all his weight into holding the older man underwater. Eldridge fought, and Winstaff dragged him to the deep end, forcing him to the bottom until the fighting and the air bubbles expired.

"I can't endure any more of your smoke. I want you gone.

He placed the net back on its rack and watched contentedly as the body drifted to the surface, elated that the despicable smoking that had plagued him was finally eliminated. Eldridge's pipe was now extinguished forever. He kicked it into the pool with satisfaction and looked around. Neighboring houses were distant, only the gleam of a couple of porch lights and the glow of TVs through window blinds punctuating the evening's darkness. No one had seen the altercation. There were no cameras mounted on Eldridge's house. He retrieved his dropped handkerchief, left the pool, and almost skipped home, happier than he had been in years.

Through his binoculars, he watched the body floating and bloating for three days before the police rang his doorbell. They told him that his neighbor had accidentally drowned and asked if he'd seen anything. He said he had not and was saddened that the friendly man next door was gone. When they left, Winstaff did a spontaneous happy dance in his vestibule and breathed deeply of the clean air. His house had not felt like home before now. At last, he was free.

He was in such a good mood that he decided to go out for dinner despite the befouled wait staff, but when he returned, something was wrong. He smelled tobacco.

Snatching up his binoculars, he looked at Eldridge's pool, whose lighting was on a night timer, but no one was there, and the tobacco stench was stronger than he'd previously known. It was real now, not just clairvoyantly perceived, and it was inside his house.

He searched, starting on the third floor, looking into each room, spraying room freshener as he went. Nothing. He found no source. When he came down the stairs and strode into the kitchen, however, he froze.

A pipe with a silver band lay in the center of the kitchen counter. He knew nothing about pipes, but it appeared to be the same one he had so happily kicked into Eldridge's pool. It had certainly not been on the counter earlier. Water seeped from its bowl, and the smell of tobacco wafted in nauseating waves. He pinched his nose closed with one hand and picked up the pipe with the other. He was sure it was Eldridge's, tainted and darkened by years of tobacco defilement. The word Peterson was etched onto its silver band, but it meant nothing to Winstaff. Perhaps it represented some special meaning to Eldridge and his wife, and she had had it engraved. How touching.

No one had seen the altercation.

His mind raced with potential explanations for the sudden appearance of the pipe. Could someone be confronting him with evidence of his crime? He carried it to the backyard, where he started his gas firepit and tossed it in, watching it burn. It was an enormously satisfying experience and took a long time. After the wood had blackened and deteriorated to ash and the silver had dulled, tarnished, and warped in the heat, he turned and went inside and to bed.

He almost never dreamed, but this night he found himself drowning, not in water but in thick, black, viscous smoke. It buffeted him from all sides and tortuously suffocated him. His lungs cried for oxygen, his nose plugged with vile soot, and panic gripped his every primordial instinct. He tried to swim but could find no surface, no respite, and he struggled in mortal desperation until he woke.

A foul, smoky odor had pulled him from his dream. He sat up and sniffed. Was the house on fire? He looked around, and his heart skipped a beat with a bowel-wrenching internal thwump. The pipe was back. It rested reproachfully on his nightstand.

It was no longer burned nor waterlogged, its silver band gleaming in the morning light that streamed from the balcony's French doors. He blinked, his eyes tearing, perhaps from the smell, perhaps from repressed outrage. There was only one explanation, and he had seen enough horror movies to recognize the supernatural. "Eldridge?" he called. "Eldridge, are you here? Come out, coward."

The house was silent. Winstaff showered to remove the odor that had adhered to his skin overnight. He dressed and admired himself in the mirror, then checked the firepit. There was no silver band among the ashes. He grabbed the pipe and jumped into his Mercedes SUV. He drove to the other side of town, to Widdemere Swamp, and trudged a difficult mile from the road, ruining his Louis Vuitton loafers in the muck and tearing his Tom Ford suit on the brambles. After finding a dismal water hole, he searched in the mud for a suitable rock, and when he found one, he tightly strapped the pipe to it with his $1,400 Brioni belt. He tossed it into the fetid water and trekked back to his car.

He pinched his nose closed with one hand and picked up the pipe with the other.

He drove around absently for a long time, dreading to go home, but his ruined suit reeked of swamp water and residual stink from carrying the pipe in a pocket. He tried stuffing his nostrils with tissues, but when he could stand it no longer, he drove home.

Opening his front door slowly, he sniffed the air. All he could smell was his own stench. He showered again, put on a fresh suit (he refused to own casual clothes), changed the sheets on the bed, and cooked an early dinner of fresh blackened salmon, butter/parmesan asparagus spears, and roasted chimichurri potatoes. He prided himself on his cooking skills but ate listlessly, glancing around and sniffing the air over his glass of Leroy Musigny Grand Cru Pinot Noir.

When he heard the squelch of waterlogged footsteps, he lowered his wine glass and slowly rose from the table.

Wet shoeprints criss-crossed the kitchen floor. Winstaff bent down and ran a finger through one, holding the moisture near his nose. He needed little proximity to sense the chlorine. On the counter was the silver-banded pipe, covered in swamp goo and algae, bubbling putrid muck onto his marble countertop. The reek of pipe tobacco drifted in the air.

He sprang to the sink, flipped the switch to the garbage disposal, and stuffed the pipe into the drain. It clanked and pinged and scraped as the blades chopped it into pieces, and the countertop vibrated violently, rattling the dishes in the cabinets. He ran the water until the whir of the disposal was clear and free. Pulling a mop and bucket from the cleaning closet, he mopped the footprints from the kitchen floor, then sprayed the kitchen liberally with room freshener.

Eldridge's death was not the lifestyle improvement Winstaff had hoped for. Paralyzed by uncertainty, he felt isolated by these bizarre circumstances. Loneliness was an unfamiliar emotion to him, but it abruptly consumed his mood. He had no friends who would talk with him; they had abandoned him long ago. He paced from the kitchen through the dining and living rooms to his den and back again, over and over, agitated and muttering to himself. He decided to call his ex-wife just to hear a human voice.

"What is it, Tom?" she answered. "I've told you I won't renegotiate our divorce terms."

"It's not that, Bree. I wanted to tell you that Edgar Eldridge died. You always liked him, and I thought you should know." He began to smell smoke again and looked frantically around the room.

"Oh no! He was such a sweet man and an awesome neighbor. I never understood why you wouldn't leave him alone. What happened?"

"He drowned in his pool."

"That's awful. It's hard to believe he would die that way; he was such an excellent swimmer. But he was elderly. Did he have a heart attack?"

"Well, his heart stopped, that's for sure, but I don't know anything more. I know I won't be forced to endure his pipe any longer."

his ruined suit reeked of swamp water

"It's always about you, isn't it? You don't have an empathetic fiber in you. His pipe never bothered anyone but you, and any smell was only in your vicious imagination."

"It wasn't imagination; you know how sensitive my nose is. It's a blessing and a curse." His sensitive nose was now smelling thicker and thicker pipe tobacco gathering around him.

"When is the funeral? I'd like to attend."

"I have no idea. Not soon enough. It should have been years ago."

"What a thing to say. I don't want to talk with you. You're a small, miserable man." She hung up. That was typical of their conversations, but upsetting her always made him feel better.

The smoke was a visible haze now, and from the kitchen, he again heard the squelch of wet shoes on tile. Peering over the counter, he watched in horror as watery footprints manifested one by one and traversed from the dining room to the sink. Winstaff stared but could discern no source, no ghostly apparition. "Eldridge? Do you think you can intimidate me? Don't bother. You deserved worse, you inconsiderate bastard, and I'd do it again 100 times. You hear me? I enjoyed it."

Just below eye level, only three feet in front of him, the air began to darken to gray and to swirl like a miniature tornado. The pipe that he had thrice destroyed materialized from within the vortex. It turned toward him, and a flame manifested above the bowl. Before he could react, pungent smoke spewed in an unending rush from an unseen mouth and enveloped him, evoking his dream from the previous night and saturating the kitchen with thickening and expanding smoke. Winstaff choked and gagged, and he fled the house.

You don't have an empathetic fiber in you.

He drove his Mercedes fast toward no place in particular but soon pulled over to spray himself with the air freshener that he kept in his car, trying to reduce the smoke stink from his latest encounter with his ex-neighbor. He was perturbed to realize that he was now haunted. He had gone to all the trouble of killing Eldridge and couldn't even reap the benefits. It wasn't fair, and as unimaginable as it seemed, his situation was worse now than before.

He checked into a hotel for the night and didn't dream.

The next morning, he sat in his car and googled how to get rid of ghosts. Many of the results pertained to Halloween, which was only a couple of weeks away — something else to worry about. He despised children, especially when they stood on his porch reeking of greed and expecting handouts. Persistent scrolling found a metaphysical shop in town that sold crystals, herbs, and "spiritual remedies," and he sped to it.

The shop was empty of people except for the proprietor, a woman in her late twenties in a flower-print sundress and sandals, wearing garish crystal earrings, necklaces, rings, and bracelets. Winstaff almost turned and left because of the burning incense — it was repugnant. "Greetings," she said with a friendly lilt in her melodic voice. "I'm Glinda. You look troubled, friend. Relationship problems? Could I interest you in a love potion, perhaps?"

A love potion? He thought briefly about employing such a concoction to reattract Bree. He missed the millions he had relinquished in the divorce and would dearly love to see their assets comingled again. He put the thought aside for another time — he had more imminent problems.

"I need to rid my home of a ghost," he said.

"Ah, that explains it. Your aura is shadowed by a dark cloud."

"You've got that right. A dark cloud of tobacco smoke."

"Excuse me?"

"This ghost smokes, and it's driving me insane."

"Ghosts can often be perceived through the manifestation of curious smells. Are you sure it's a ghost and not teenagers smoking in your yard? Sometimes, there are mundane, earthly reasons for seemingly odd occurrences."

"Trust me, it's a ghost. How do I get rid of it?"

"The simplest method is to ask it to go away."

"This is a motivated and determined ghost. I'm certain that requests and demands are inadequate. What else do you have?"

Glinda folded her arms and leaned against the counter. "You seem very sure of your situation. Do you have some experience with this subject matter? Have you considered consulting a medium to communicate with this ghost?"

It registered with Winstaff that this young lady was especially attractive. Maybe he could exploit a weakness and beguile her into sleeping with him. He straightened his Hermes tie, adjusted his cuff so his Patek Philippe Worldtimer was partially visible on his wrist, and shifted his shoulders so the impeccably tailored fit of his Cesare Attolini bespoke suit was more obvious. "I suppose that you happen to be a medium?"

"I'd happily investigate just to learn more. I'm always interested in researching the other side. It comes with the territory." She motioned at the shelves filled with herbs, candles, potions, and crystals.

He was perturbed to realize that he was now haunted.

She must have finally recognized his wealth and good taste, he decided, and was angling for a relationship. But she would have to be patient. He couldn't risk a medium in his house. He couldn't risk Eldridge telling her why he was haunting him, or he'd find himself with two ghosts after he was forced to kill her, too, and another body in Eldridge's pool would be suspicious. He was no serial killer, but because of his exhilarating experience with Eldridge, he was mildly curious about how it might feel to compress her windpipe in his hands and watch her smile turn to dread and bright eyes dim to deathly emptiness. He roused himself from his reverie. This was no time to indulge in pleasant daydreams. There were more important things to deal with at the moment.

"This is something I need to do for myself," he said, "but perhaps we could consult later. What can you recommend to eliminate this pest?"

"Well, there are several strategies. First, you should place particular crystals around your house to repel negative spirits, specifically howlite and tourmaline. Second, you should burn white beeswax candles in each room for positivity. Third, you should smudge your home with sage."

"Did you say 'smudge?' It sounds unsanitary."

"Smudging removes negative energy from a space and promotes clarity and peace. Here, this is a smudge kit. It includes a traditional abalone shell with sand to hold a sage bundle. The sage is lit and slowly smolders. It makes negative spirits very uncomfortable. There's also an ostrich feather to fan the smoke into all the corners and crevices where a spirit might hide."

"Smoke? Smoke is what I'm trying to eliminate."

"I'm sure you've heard the phrase, 'fight fire with fire.' This would be a perfect example."

"All right, I'm willing. I'll take it all: candles, crystals, sage, the whole shebang." He leaned forward importantly. "I'll need a lot of crystals and candles. I have a large mansion." He presented his prestigious American Express Centurion card, but the girl managed to conceal her admiration. She tallied his purchases and provided a shopping cart for him to wheel to his car, refraining from comment when he jotted his unneeded phone number on the vendor copy of the receipt. She was obviously playing it cool to entice his interest. He liked that. He could be cool, too, and simply accepted his purchases, but he'd be back. He loaded his car, pushed the cart into the grass, and drove home.

He couldn't risk a medium in his house

Carrying his bags of supplies, he flung open the front door and called, "Honey, I'm home!"

He stepped inside and peered around the vestibule and up the grand staircase. He jumped when the door slammed shut behind him, the deadbolt locking with a loud click. Fine, he thought. Game on.

He distributed the candles around the house, one in each of its 22 rooms, and lit them. It wasn't long, though, before he began to feel nauseated, which was strange because they emanated only the subtlest scent of honey. He made the circuit around his house again, blowing out the offensive candles, but they relit behind him. He blew them out again and they relit once more. "Eldridge, is that you?" he asked the empty air. But it couldn't be Eldridge; the candles repelled negative spirits. That girl must have sold him trick candles. All right, fine, he could deal with it for now. It was for the greater good.

He then started placing crystals on tables, shelves, and mantelpieces, starting with the ground floor and working his way up. He didn't like their weight or texture but trusted that Eldridge would like them even less. When he reached the third floor, he felt a little woozy and began tossing the crystals into corners and onto the floors rather than carefully positioning them on the furniture.

Next, he retrieved the smudge kit. He started smudging on the top floor, urging the smoke forward with the ostrich feather. The smoke burned his eyes and irritated his nose. He didn't like it but kept going until he stumbled in the hallway when he stepped on a crystal.

Had he not been lightheaded from the disgusting smoke, he would have easily caught himself, but to his horror, he found himself tumbling over the railing above the grand staircase. He grabbed onto it and hung there, trying to gather the strength to pull himself up.

"Oh my god," he muttered, realizing that his grip was slipping. He looked down at the granite floor of the vestibule 30 feet below. He tried to swing a leg up, but the movement loosened his grip even more.

"Those spiritual trinkets really did a number on you, eh, neighbor?"

It was Eldridge, standing on the other side of the railing, smoking his god-awful pipe.

"On me?" said Winstaff. "I bought them to get rid of you."

She was obviously playing it cool to entice his interest.

"Yes, but you made a tactical error. They affect negative spirits, and I'm not among them. You're the only negative presence here."

"But I'm not a spirit. I'm alive."

"That appears to be a temporary condition."

"Eldridge, forgive me, I'm sorry. Please help me."

"I don't think I should meddle," said Eldridge, blowing a smoke ring. "I'll remain a neutral observer."

Winstaff's fingers weakened further, sliding slowly from the railing. "I can't hold on," he moaned. "You're a good man, Eldridge. You can't let this happen."

"Embrace the horror, Winstaff. You've earned it."

Winstaff fell, bouncing off the staircase banister before striking the unyielding granite of the vestibule floor. He felt his skull crack and his bones splinter as the oxygen explosively evacuated his lungs. Sparkling pinpoints illuminated his peripheral vision but faded one by one, and he drifted into indomitable blackness.

After an unknown span of time, Winstaff was surprised to wake up and even more astonished that he felt no pain. He rose from the floor and looked around. There was no blood at his feet. Even stranger, there was no furniture in his house. Every room was empty. He wondered if he'd been robbed while he was unconscious.

"Happy Halloween, neighbor," said Eldridge, striding into the vestibule, smoking, as always, his silver-banded pipe.

"How dare you smoke in my home," said Winstaff. "Death doesn't absolve you from common decency. Just wait until I get an exorcist in here. Hold on — did you say Halloween? That's weeks away."

but you made a tactical error

"It's today. You've been gone for some time. I wasn't sure that I'd see you again, but I waited. I was hoping you'd be back to haunt this house and am happy to see you here."

"What are you blathering about? I'm fine."

"You're dead, Winstaff. You don't really think you survived that fall, do you?"

His last memory was of his bones splintering on the granite. Wherever he'd been for two weeks, time worked differently there. His death made sense, though. He was completely healed, and much had transpired in his absence.

"Is that why the furniture is gone?" he asked.

"They took it all away after you died. Realtors have been in to assess the place. The executor of your estate is selling it."

"Over my dead bod— Oh."

"Exactly."

"So it's you and me, eh, Eldridge? I can't say I like the idea of sharing the afterlife with you."

"Oh, I'm not staying, but you are. You'll never leave this property. I'm moving on. I waited only to present you with a parting gift."

"And what might that be?"

Eldridge held up his pipe.

"I'm not taking that. It's the source of all my problems."

"It's yours, Winstaff. You bought it with my murder."

"What are you going to do, haunt me? Kill me? You have no leverage. Keep your pipe. I want no part of it."

Eldridge smiled, but it wasn't the amicable expression of neighborly fellowship that Winstaff was accustomed to. It was surprisingly ominous. Winstaff took a step back, alarmed.

"You fail to realize that as your victim, I am endowed with a certain authority over you. Now open wide." Eldridge turned the pipe to position its stem toward Winstaff's mouth, but Winstaff grabbed it and pushed it aside. "Keep that wretched thing away from me," he said.

Eldridge's features shifted, and his silhouette expanded to beastly proportions, towering four feet taller than Winstaff. His edges blurred, and he became a non-defined form, a creature of churning smoke, his eyes ember-red. He wrapped his gigantic smoky hand around the back of Winstaff's neck and, with thumb and forefinger, applied pressure to both sides of his jaw, forcing it open.

"Nooo!" wailed Winstaff. "I won't smoke it! You can't make me!"

The Eldridge beast jammed the pipe stem into Winstaff's mouth, and then he snapped it closed. The smoke monster dissipated, leaving behind Eldridge in his usual form.

The pipe was now firmly clenched in Winstaff's teeth, a permanent fixture, smoking steadily. "It burns," cried Winstaff, talking around the clenched pipe stem. "It burns my tongue. I can't spit it out!" He pulled at the pipe with both hands, but he couldn't extract it.

"That's tongue bite," said Eldridge. "New pipe smokers often experience it. They learn to avoid that, but you never will; you'll always be an amateur. You needn't worry about relighting it, though. The pipe will remain lit. Forever."

Winstaff tried to bang his face into the wall to dislodge the pipe, but he was incorporeal, and his head passed through without contact. "Don't do this," he pleaded. "It's torture; it's beyond Hell. I can't survive like this, I'll go mad."

An ethereal doorway materialized behind Eldridge, spilling a blinding white light into the vestibule. Eldridge gazed through it into the distance and smiled. "My time here is done," he said. "My wife is waiting, and she has a new pipe for me."

"You made my life a nightmare for three years, and now you get to go to Heaven?" whined Winstaff. "It isn't fair."

he became a non-defined form, a creature of churning smoke, his eyes ember-red.

"Fair? You're getting exactly the same thing I am. I'll spend eternity smoking my pipe with the person I love most. You'll also be smoking for eternity and with the person you love best: yourself. Goodbye, Winstaff." Eldridge stepped into the light, and he disappeared when the doorway winked out, leaving Winstaff alone in his empty house.

He wandered from room to room, smoking the foul pipe against his will, suffering from the stench and mired in utter despair. He tried to leave the property and couldn't. Months passed. He watched invisibly as realtors brought prospective buyers into the home, but they all detected the ghostly odor of tobacco and were unwilling to make an offer.

Workmen arrived and refinished all the woodwork, replaced the carpeting, and painted all the walls and ceilings, but the scent of smoke persisted. The asking price kept being reduced until two young men bought the house. They both smoked cigars, and the tobacco odor did not bother them. Their cigars bothered Winstaff, though, and he desperately wanted to kill them but was unable to interact in any way with the environment. He was an impotent shadow, able only to observe and rage at the injustice dealt to him.

I'll spend eternity smoking my pipe with the person I love most.

Time trudged inexorably forward. The new owners grew old and passed away; the house was purchased by other smokers since only smokers could live there, and Winstaff was miserable to be trapped with them. Eventually, the house deteriorated, fell to ruin, and faded from memory, and Winstaff was abandoned to wander the empty lot with his pipe. Generations of trees and brush grew and died, eons passed, the rocks weathered to dust, and solar fluctuations inevitably stripped away the atmosphere, leaving Winstaff to walk the bleak and barren sunbaked ground forever alone and smoking — always smoking.