We describe an effective theory of a scalar field, motivated by some features expected in the low energy theory of gluodynamics in 3+1 dimensions. The theory describes two propagating massless particles in a certain limit, which we identify with the
Abelian QED limit, and has classical string solutions in the general case. The string solutions are somewhat unusual as they are multiply degenerate due to spontaneous breaking of diffeomorphism invariance. Nevertheless all solutions yield identical electric field and have the same string tension.
We give a simple discussion of ghosts, unitarity violation, negative norm states and quantum vs classical behavior in the simplest model with four derivative action - the Pais-Uhlenbeck oscillator. We also point out that the normalizable vacuum state
(in the sense defined below) of this model can be understood as spontaneous breaking of the emergent conformal symmetry. We provide an example of an interacting system that couples the particle and ghost degrees of freedom and nevertheless remains unitary on both classical and quantum level.
