There wasn't a big crowd at the pizza place. I don't like crowds. I suppose I was never exactly fond of crowds, but my mild dislike blossomed into full anathema when my wife left me a few months ago. Ever since then, I liked to purchase my dinner quickly and retreat to my cave of an apartment twice as quickly without leaving a strong impression on the minds of those soulless food vendors.

The first thing I notice as I turn on the light is that I'm not alone. There's a tweed-jacketed someone sitting on my sofa, one long trousered leg crossed over the other. I'm only slightly relieved to notice that he's not holding any weapons at the moment. Instead, he's holding a delicate glass containing some kind of liquor. "Care for a drink?" he asks (or rather, mumbles loudly) out of one corner of his mouth. His accent is definitely English, but it must be from a different part than where Mary Poppins got hers. "I don't drink," I manage despite my voice cracking with fear. "Now that's a crying shame," he says. "A man separated from his wife, and he denies himself the numbing pleasure of the bottle. How will you ever make it through?"

"Who are you? And how do you know about my wife?" I demand, slowly inching away, hoping to find some sort of blunt object (or, better yet, a sharp one) behind me on the kitchen counter. "Edward James," he says, "at your service. But please, call me Ted."

"I don't want to call you anything. I just want you out of here, and I want you to leave my wife the hell alone!"

"Relax," he says soothingly. And remarkably enough, despite the circumstances, I do relax. "I'm not here to harm you. I can't harm you, as a matter of fact. You should think of me more as the Ghost of Christmas Past than an intruder."

"It's not Christmas," I say, feeling a bit more relaxed though I'm still on my guard. "That is hardly consequential," he says, standing up and walking toward me. I can see that he's easily 6'2", and I tense up again, wondering what chance I have if this gets physical. He notices and halts his advance. "Do you not recognize me?" he asks. I take a closer look at his face, now in the light. He has longish, sandy hair, a protruding nose, and a rugged chin. He has a beauty mark, of all things, on his right cheek. "You have several of my books on your shelf over there," he gestures back toward the bookcase in the living room.

"Edward James... Hughes? Ted Hughes?"

"Indeed. How d'you do?" He offers his right hand, and I shake it hesitantly. It feels like a good handshake, a firm, manly one, judging by the handshake standards every boy seems to learn from his father, but as I look down at his hand I see that it isn't holding mine. It's not even moving. It's still where it was when he offered it to me. Mine is the only hand moving, and it's passing right through his on its solitary journey up and down, up and down. "I guess you really are a ghost," is the only thing I can think to say. Goodness! How embarrassing to say something like that in the presence of your hero. "Can I ask you something?" I venture cautiously. "Why did you price Capriccio at two thousand pounds? I never could get my hands on a copy. Were the poems you chose to put in it that good?"

"We're all allowed one or two small vanities," he replies, a small grin at the same corner of his mouth he speaks from. He sips the glass, surprising me a little by using both corners. "Sure you wouldn't like a drink?"

"No thanks. What is it?"

"Champagne. Most connoiseurs think the coupe inferior to the flute, but I happen to like my champagne slightly warm and flat."

"Well, you're obviously immaterial, so I guess that goes for your champagne too." I take the proffered coupe and have a sip, then a gulp. It's as he said. Slightly warm, flatter than any soft drink I've tasted, and surprisingly like the sparkling grape juice my wife insisted we have to toast the fifteen New Years we shared together. But then again, it's not real. It might be as much the contrivance of my imagination as the poet laureate standing in my kitchen. I'm right. The glass isn't any less full than it was before I took a drink. "I assume you're here on some sort of post-mortal, boy scout, 'Do a Good Deed Daily' mission?"

"Is that what you assumed? I assumed I was the contrivance of your imagination, here to offer you whatever assistance your subconscious would have you be cognizant of."

"That's what I assumed too."

"You lied?"

"If you were something other than my own imagination, you would know things that I wouldn't. Since you don't seem to, I must be right--well, we must be right."

"Rather good lark, that one!" he half chuckles, half mumbles into his champagne.

"Well, I just got back from the pizza place. Care to join?"

"What, decided I'm real, have you?"

"No, just grateful for the company, even if it's imaginary."

"Does it have salmon?"

"No."

"Sardines, then?"

"No."

"Anchovies?" he asked with the faintest of hopes. I snicker a little because he pronounced it like Michael Palin did in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

"No. Just pepperoni."

"I've had a hankering for the seafood pizzas of Melbourne ever since I saw my brother, Gerald, for the last time."

"I know," I say. "I imagined you might and wrote a paper about it last year. It got published, if that's any consolation." We eat in silence for a while; that is, I eat and imagine him eating. "If you're here to comfort me," I say to break the silence, "I certainly hope Sylvia isn't trying to comfort my wife."

"Amen to that," he mumbles grimly, downing whatever imaginary champagne was left in his coupe.