The Hedge of a Hundred Sparrows
- Feb 28, 2020
- 6 min read
by Sara Dobbie
The lady limps through a throng of faceless people, mouthing the words “help me,” but no one sees her because faceless people don’t have eyes. She stumbles to the ground, pulls up her pant leg to reveal a pallid calf, a pointy ankle, but the foot is missing. No blood or bone, just a flat, smooth edge like a mannequin in a window.
Paisley opens her eyes to stare at the ceiling, inhales a deep breath, wipes the sweat from her brow. The footless lady is as familiar to her as her own skin. She had been expecting her; whenever Uncle Allan telephones to say he’s stopping in for a visit, the dream recurs in some manifestation or another. And once evoked, the footless lady remains.
Though it is quite early Paisley dresses, splashes cold water on her face and leaves the apartment. Each morning she walks around the block for the pleasure of passing the hedge at the end of the street. Currently the hedge is leafless, a spiky labyrinth of intertwined branches, but Paisley knows that at least a hundred sparrows are camouflaged inside of it, the soft browns and blacks of their feathers blending with the wood. As she approaches, the songlike twittering elevates to shrill chirping, and Paisley imagines the hundred tiny beaks opening and closing as fast as the hundred tiny hearts must be thumping. As she reaches the midpoint the cacophony rises en masse, wings beating as they spread out in the sky like a living firework.
Each bird, Paisley thinks, is a worry, or anything else Paisley needs to expel from herself. A nightmare or a fixation, up and away. Today she releases the time Uncle Allan sped passed an elderly woman on the highway and gave her the finger because she wasn’t driving fast enough. And the time he kicked a stray cat so hard it howled like a human. Every day she steps gingerly toward the hedge in anticipation of the moment when the sparrows, with their burst of clarity, free up space in her chest for twenty-four more hours. Space which she knows will slowly refill when she places a cup of tea on the kitchen table for Uncle Allan, as every sentence he utters lodges there like a pebble in a jar.
Paisley came to the realization that Uncle Allan was a bad person when she was ten years old, that day outside the grocery store when he exhibited shockingly cruel behavior. She had already been living with him for four years by that point. When her mother lay dying in the hospital she said to Paisley, “Allan is the only person I trust,” and then added, smiling, “I think you’ll bring out the best in him.” In some ways, Paisley supposed, she did. Allan doted on her, drove her to and from school every morning, made pancakes from scratch on Saturdays, took her for fast food whenever she liked. The two of them existed in their own little world, and that world was lovely and full of childish fun. Paisley noticed over time, however, that outsiders garnered Uncle Allan’s anger, disdain, and sometimes, hatred.
Across the street from the hedge Paisley lingers to watch as the sparrows return one by one, diving inside their fortress from all directions. She admires their speed, their aim. Sparrows, she thinks, could seriously hurt someone if they were so inclined, could set their mark and zoom like a bullet straight towards a person’s eye, or throat. Instead, they keep to themselves, alighting on stone baths or windowsills, presenting an elegant grace to humankind. Walking homeward, Paisley feels the footless lady still with her, limping along beside her as she rounds the corner to get back to her building. Leaning against the railing inside the elevator for support. Settling onto the couch in the living room, resting her footless leg on the coffee table.
Uncle Allan arrives at noon. She is not surprised at the deepening lines in his forehead, the yellowish tinge to his jowls. Years of smoking and scowling at strangers have expedited his aging. Paisley sets out a plate of cucumber sandwiches, boils the kettle. He is jovial, asking questions about her job, her life. She smiles and answers, tries to ignore the footless lady who is shaking her head.
“I’ll never understand,” Uncle Allan says, “why you left home so soon. You could have stayed with me until you saved enough money for a down payment on a house.”
She wants to tell him about the last straw. The day at the grocery store when she was ten. He let her buy ice cream, chocolate sauce, and even sprinkles. They filled the cart with everything they needed, too many bags to carry. As they left the store through the big automatic glass doors Paisley heard a loud cry, the voice of someone in pain. Uncle Allan kept right on pushing the cart as a group of people collected around a short, middle-aged woman. Paisley stopped, turned around, and saw that the woman had taken off her shoe to cradle her wounded foot, balancing precariously on the other. “Asshole!” she yelled, “you could at least say you’re sorry!” Uncle Allan grabbed hold of Paisley’s hand while pushing the cart faster, ushered her across the parking lot. If Paisley harbored any doubt about exactly what happened, it became clear once the woman started pointing directly at Allan and shouting, “He ran over my foot with his cart, I think it’s broken!” Paisley climbed into the backseat with a lump in her throat and a knot forming in her stomach while Uncle Allan threw the bags in the trunk.
During the car ride home Uncle Allan said nothing, just turned on the radio and hummed along as usual. The knot in Paisley’s stomach tightened until she couldn’t take it anymore, and as they pulled into the driveway she asked, “Do you think that lady will be ok?”
He scoffed, then cleared his throat. “What lady?”
“The one with the broken foot.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
From that day on Paisley began keeping a tally of all the nice things he did for her, and all the mean things she witnessed him do to others. She actually wrote these lists down side by side in her diary, which she kept locked and hidden inside a compartment in her backpack. She hoped that if she kept the list balanced, that the good things would cancel out the bad things. Like if he took her to the movies it didn’t matter that he didn’t tip the waitress in the diner afterwards. Or if he helped her with her math homework, he could be forgiven for telling the neighbors to go fuck themselves over the fence because they played music louder than he liked. Each act of unkindness, though, weighed on her, worried her, and seeped into her subconscious to fill it with strange nightmares.
Paisley doesn’t tell him, of course, about that day in the grocery store; it isn’t worth it. She watches him eat the cucumber sandwiches, and she just can’t reconcile her gratitude towards him with her exasperation at his stunning indifference. Over the years her mother’s words would come back to her, bring out the best in him, and she would make attempts to speak to him about changing his ways. He would become sullen, brooding, and then after a day or two he would shower her with gifts. A new book she wanted to read, a trip to the mall for expensive shoes, cake for supper. She knew he loved her, that wasn’t the problem; she wanted him to be kind, to at least pretend he cared about other people. If not for his own sake, then for hers. She wanted him to understand that she could not respect a man who treated people so carelessly.
Allan says he is feeling stuffy inside the apartment and wants to stretch his legs. Paisley suggests a walk outside in the fresh air. The footless lady accompanies them in the elevator, follows them outside, dragging her stub at a distance while Allan and Paisley stroll toward the hedge. Allan tells her about how he’s been banned from the library for refusing to pay his overdue fines, tells her that he’s lodged a complaint at the hardware store regarding the cashier and his terrible service. Paisley feels that her chest is about to overflow, and she breathlessly awaits the inevitable flight of the sparrows, the moment of release. They reach the hedge, and the chattering from within it escalates. The sparrows dart out, a frenzy of beating wings. For a moment Paisley feels a weight lift, but Allan is startled by the birds. His arms shoot up to cover his face and he missteps, letting out a yelp as he falls to the sidewalk. Paisley gasps and begins to laugh, overcome by the absurdity of the scene.
She briefly imagines walking away and leaving him to fend for himself, imagines redemption for the footless lady, for everyone he has mistreated. She looks at Allan lying there, helpless and human, cursing the birds and the sidewalk and the town, sees the footless lady evaporate into the brilliant afternoon sun. She considers her mother’s words once more, then extends a hand to her uncle to help him up, as the sparrows return from dizzying heights to the hedge, their aim straight and true.
Sara Dobbie is a fiction writer from Southern Ontario, Canada. Her work has appeared in The Cabinet of Heed, Crab Fat Magazine, Ellipsis Zine, (Mac)ro(Mic), Re-Side, Spelk Fiction, and is forthcoming from Fiction Kitchen Berlin and Change Seven Magazine.
