A Portion for Foxes

By Brook West

Set in near-future Japan, this novelette tells of Tadashi's quest to finish a virtual reality device to make his elderly mother happier living in the city when she misses life on her farm. Then Tadashi meets the woman of his dreams . . . who might not be quite what she seems.

Originally published in Writers of the Future, Vol. XI, Bridge Publications, June 1995.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Callihoo Publishing
• Release date: Sep 27, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465897961

Brook West

Brook West grew up in Holladay, Utah, where he took an interest in fantasy and science fiction at an early age. He's had an eclectic and wide variety of jobs. He served as a Marine in Vietnam, and later served as a missionary in Japan for the LDS church. As an electronics technician he's repaired everything from radar equipment to mainframe computers. He's spent time at sea, worked as a bookbinder in both Western and Japanese styles, built ultrasonic sensors for artificial arms, worked on field studies of lizard diets, made jewelry, worked as a lifeguard, made maps (including a map of the geomorphology of the Dao Vallis area of Mars), published fanzines, scuba dived, worked in a pharmacy, participated in an archaeological dig in western Utah, and more. He has studied Vietnamese, Hebrew, Arabic, and is fairly fluent speaking, reading, and writing Japanese. In college he studied world building, earning a degree in physical geography, with a minor in biology. This works nicely when he collaborates on stories with his wife, who is an anthropologist. He builds worlds, and she peoples them. He was a published finalist in the 11th Writers of the Future contest. That story appeared in the same volume as his wife's (which won the contest's grand prize for the year). He served ten years as the Nebula Awards Editor for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and received the Service to SFWA Award in recognition of his work.

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A Portion for Foxes

Brook West

Published by Callihoo Publishing at Smashwords

Copyright 2011 Brook West

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Cover design by Danica B. West

Tadashi Matsutani left the lights of Kamioka station and followed his shadow down a narrow street between steel-shuttered shopfronts. He nodded at the tiny Inari shrine as he approached, then stopped as movement caught his attention. A fox, dappled with moonlight and shadow, pawed at fallen leaves before the shrine.

Tadashi stared. Foxes belonged back on his parents' farm, not in a Yokohama suburb. The fox froze, one paw upraised, head cocked to look at him.

Reality intruded with the distant whine of a mag-lev bullet train and the fox darted behind the shrine. Tadashi rubbed the smooth granite head of one of the two stone foxes flanking the torii gate of the shrine. Must be your little sister, ne?

Shoehorned between a stationer and an alley shared with a vegetable shop, the shrine bore an air of shabby abandonment. Litter cluttered the steps, gingko and maple leaves filled the narrow forecourt. Tadashi's arm brushed the sketchpad in his jacket pocket. Just a quick sketch or two.…

Twenty minutes later he switched the sketchpad off and glanced back along the dark rows of shops, toward Kamioka station. Mother would be waiting with dinner and, at twenty-nine, he didn't need scolding.

"Tadaima!" he said, opening the door of the tiny apartment he shared with Mother. I'm back. Rich odors of miso and rice-bran pickles wafted out to greet him.

"Okaeri nasai!" Mother answered. Welcome home.

He slipped out of his shoes and stepped up into the kitchen. I saw a fox at the Inari shrine by the station.

Haruko Matsutani's thin face took on an air of disapproval. A fox? Here? You've been working too late again. I'm surprised you didn't see a tengu too; some long-nosed forest goblin teaching fencing to young Yoshitsune.

This was real. Look, I made sketches. He pulled the well-used sketchpad from his pocket and thumbed it on, but she was already carrying food out of the kitchen.

He followed her into the smaller of the apartment's two tatami-floored rooms. The little folding table was set for two, bright zabuton cushion at each end. Mother knelt stiffly and he sat cross-legged. He set the sketchpad where she could reach it.

You should hope it wasn't a fox, said Haruko, glancing at his sketches. Foxes are tricky and dangerous. Get too close and you'll end up chasing foxfire in the fog.

Mother, no one believes that nonsense anymore. He politely slurped his miso soup, piled stir-fried vegetables on his rice, and began to eat.

"You should have more respect for tradition, like Papa did. He worked all his life to build up the farm for you, until those rice imports collapsed the market. But you! All you wanted to do was go to