The Green Fox

Sam ran through the damp streets of London. If someone had told him it was raining, he'd have looked up at the sky in surprise. His mind was elsewhere. Some of it was back at the gig he should have been working, making sure hairy singers could play their guitars and be heard, but most of it was somewhere darker, several years in the past.

Sam emerged in a bright street. A few inviting restaurants, more than a few inviting coffee shops and an internet cafe, spilling their light into the night and making the puddles shine. Sam headed straight for the internet cafe. It was quite unlike the net cafes he usually found himself in. It sold coffee. It had sofas. It was, Sam decided, an altogether middle class affair for the kind of teenagers that owned iPods and Vans. They took his money grudgingly.

Once seated at the machine - the mouse works, for fucks sake, he thought - Sam logged on to his online bank account. While the computer ticked its way through his passwords, Sam chewed a nail. And looked around him. A few travellers were updating their blogs with pictures; all grins in front of Big Ben and the Tower and the River. A couple of kids were engaged in instant messages, several conversations going at once. Someone else was looking up hotel information. The real world was happening around him. Sam regarded it unhappily. Yesterday, a few hours ago, even, he'd been part of it. Job. Flat. Shopping at Tesco on a Thursday. He'd become very fond of the real world. But for the reappearance of the green fox, Sam's world would still be poiting due real.

He glanced back at the computer. His account had appeared. Sort of. Sam gazed at the number at the bottom of the screen for a long moment, while his heart pounded against his ribs. His money was gone. All that was left of a good couple of thousand was a row of electronic zeros. He clicked on the link that would take him to his ISA statement. Another few thousand pounds had dropped from existence. Everything was gone.

It didn't come as much of a surprise, but that didn't stop Sam's vision clouding alarmingly white as he sped towards unconsciousness. He was back three years ago.

He opened his eyes. After that quiet darkness, the place he now lay sprawled in was bright and noisy with birdsong. He was in long grass, in a field. Trees were shedding their blossom above him. Daffodils were bursting their buds a little way from him, next to a stream so clear you could see the smooth pebbles at the bottom. He could hear the water meandering along. A pleasant breeze stirred the grass. Birds were singing. There was a sense of peace about the whole place.

Sam looked around him for a short moment, and screamed.

Not here. Not back here again. Please.

He leapt up and ran as if he had somewhere to go. In his blind panic, he managed to trip over his feet and fell over, quite spectacularly, coming to a stop several feet away.

'Oh God,' he said. 'Oh God oh God oh God.'

A butterfly flew over his head and he yelped, jerking away from it. A fish or something like it splashed quietly in the stream and he screamed again. This place - this place again - felt like it was closing in on him. It always felt like it was closing in on him. Sometimes he couldn't breathe when he found himself there, and would crouch, hyperventilating, in the clean country air. In the early days, it had been wonderful to find himself here. Now he knew what it meant, there was no pleasure in the trees or the stream or the flowers.

Sam spun around, wondering desperately how he could get out.

'You can't,' said a familiar voice. 'But at least you've stopped screaming.'

Sam turned around. It was the green fox. He hadn't seen the green fox in two years. The fox was the epitome of this field. You knew things were bad when the fox turned up. Back then, the first time Sam had found himself in the field, in fact, he'd landed on the green fox, rolled off and vomited into the stream. The fox had fixed him with a piercing look and had asked if he wanted to be bitten. Right now, the fox fixed him with the same piercing look.

'What are you doing back here, Sam? I thought you promised never to come back here.'

Sam felt his legs give way, and he slid to the floor again.

'Hi, fox,' he whispered.

The green fox shook its head. 'No pleasantries, Sam. No "How've you been?" or "What's new?". What are you doing here? Are you back on your drug?'

Sam shook his head, staring at the fox in mute horror. He didn't want to be sitting in front of a talking green fox in the middle of an imaginary summertime field. He shut his eyes and the darkness was back, all at once. The smell of clean air and lavender bushes faded. He felt his heart jump at the relief - maybe it was a dream - and he opened his eyes again, eager to see the ceiling of his bedroom and curtains closed against the night.

Instead, Sam was back where he had been at the moment the field appeared. He was standing off stage, holding a cable in one hand and a radio in the other. It was crackling and, through bursts of static, someone was shouting a name. His name.

'Sam! Sam! Ignore me any longer and you're fired!'

The scream of an electric guitar drowned it out.