Philosophical Flirting with "The Latest Dark Cabal"

Thanks for the link on your blog to Richard Bowes's story, "There's a Hole in the City," and it's nice to better understand Rick's thinking by his comment:

What I needed was time and context. In the direct aftermath when I found myself the only person out walking on a dark city block or when any sudden sound made everyone look toward Ground Zero, I felt I was in a ghost story. That stuck with me and served as the metaphor that made it possible for me to tell the story you read.

there, too. I do appreciate the appeal of a ghost metaphor as a vehicle for communicating those painful echos of "reality" in semi-fictionalized form. Myself, I've resorted to many such subterfuges from life as a dirty joke to my current role playing "real" life is pursuit of "the truth," but for today your blog together with Rick's ghost story have given rise to my latest philosophical question to the blog sphere, "Why is it so hard to 'tell it like it is'"?