“Doing Time In The U.S.A.” by David Perlmutter

I.

When the lightning and thunder hit, Jane woke with a start.

Just as well. She’d been having the terrible dream about being pursued by the wolves in the forest, and then…

No. Best not to think about that.

She turned on the bedside lamp with some difficulty, and examined herself in the light. She seemed whole and intact. Fur properly matted, ears still in place atop her head, tail at her ass, hoofs still at the end of her limbs. She was fine.

But for how long?

“I can’t go to pieces”, she told herself. “They’re counting on me to do this thing, and do it well. I can’t let them down.”

With that in mind, she turned the lamp off and lay back down. Although it was a long and torturous time before she actually allowed herself to sleep again.

II.

All the time Jane had been in America, she had cursed herself repeatedly for making the decision that brought her there. Often, when it seemed things were at their worst, she wished that it was easy to go home. That she could just “wake” herself up and she’d be back. But it never worked when she tried to do it.

“Home”, for her, was as foreign and strange a place to the eyes of an American as this place was to her. The land of Anthropomorph had no boundaries set by geography or physics, and could be dropped nearby or into whenever, whatever, or whichever place it…