“Let’s take a walk, shall we?” The voice came from below the table, and seeing as I was the only person in the backyard at the time it spoke, me jumping and obliterating the glass-topped table was totally justified.

I looked down at the patio surface and found nothing amiss. There were no kids (though to be frank, the directive had sounded like it came from a forty-year-old man) or small people of any nature. No talking animals, no spiritual bugs. Then what-

“I would take it kindly to not be stared at in such a fashion, you know.”

I screamed. “Who, what… where?” I backpedaled a bit, my cheap flip-flops dragging across the cement.

“All great topic starters,” the disembodied voice (which seemed to be coming from only two feet above the ground) admitted, “but we’ve not much time for nonsense.”
Gradually, as if the sun was only being blocked by watery, wispy clouds, a green suited man appeared, standing on the patio with small black buckled shoes. He shook his wavy red hair and smiled.

“Hello, son.”