Would you please either PM me the context out of which the metaphor came or paste it here?

I went looking for the passage when you first asked about it several days ago, WW, but I couldn't find it. I thought it was in "breathing" ... but no luck finding it there.

In any event, the author of this "Faldage" has never denied its provenance, and I quoted it faithfully, word for word, at the top of this thread, thus:

it evaporated into the mists of coincidence

Personally, I don't understand what the fuss is all about.
Suffice it to say that a metaphor which hangs on a thread of contentious, technical explication is a failed metaphor, even if it isn't a mixed metaphor.