Cosmic Giraffe
It was just the head of a giraffe. Well, head and much of the neck, floating in the air at the foot of his bed, looking down on him with the implacable superiority of those born to high places.

Giraffes can be terrified, he thought. They run from lions and other predators. He did not feel like a predator and his cat, in any event itself much smaller than a lion, was nowhere to be seen, probably hiding under the bed.

The giraffe did not appear terrified.

It is a central misrepresentation of all stories that the events they depict do not fairly represent the subject's life. They are chosen to inform, entertain or to make a point. Know, then, that up until and after this moment he had lived and would live a life utterly ordinary, even to the point of having remarried, so that his one from his previous, plus her one, plus their single child together could be said to account for his average 2.5 children.

All that picket fence normality did not banish the giraffe. His wife and children were off on holiday, he would join them in a few days. In the meantime he was alone in the house with the cat and a giraffe.

It seemed stuck in the bedroom. He did not see it in the living room, the kitchen, at work, or driving to or from work. When he arrived home from work, the cat had come out from under the bed. The cat did not quite acknowledge the giraffe but it did avoid that end of the bed.

On the third day, when he was packing, the giraffe began to fade. It disappeared completely, just as he snapped the lock on his suitcase. Although he had wondered about his sanity while the giraffe was there, when he joined his wife and daughters the giraffe slowly faded from his memory as it had from his world.

With this one exception: ever after, occasionally, inappropriately, he would smile.