Near Post Flick swims back to a kind of consciousness. It can see a cornflower-blue sky stretching out before it, and tries to blink away the specks swirling in its vision. It’s odd, the specks seem to have wings and to swoop and plunge in elegant parabolas.
A voice. Strong, cold yet oddly guttural and glottal-stopped.
‘Clear!!’
‘Do you quite fucking mind?’ Near Post Flick is awake now. Awake. Cold. Surprisingly, naked. And not too keen to further pursue voltage-nipple interface. Then suddenly, sharply, ‘What happened? Where am I?’
‘Well, Roy Hodgson got the England job,’ smiled his white-coated interlocutor, ‘and he secured them a creditable quarter-final finish after topping their group. It was football, after a sort, but hardly food for the soul. Unless you’re John Beck.’
‘Right.’ Near Post Flick felt warmth returning to its hands. ‘And?’
‘Well, Manchester City won the Premier League and Mancini then switched to a back three in pre-season purely to prove a point, United spent a ton of wad on Robin van Persie and Chelsea are transitioning into a sort of Ikea Barcelona. Also, this conceit is quite wearying, and I’m saying that as one of the two chief protagonists.’
‘Stop breaking the fourth wall. It’s so last year.’
‘Fuck off. I’m still carrying defibrillator pads.’
