Boundaries

A very short story

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“Hedges.”

“Hedges? What about hedges?”

John and Chelsea were walking home from school. They’d struck up a friendship after walking the same route every school night, as they lived in adjacent streets. They got into the habit of expressing a thought as it occurred to them. It was a way of sparking a conversation that could go in almost any direction. The more vague it sounded, the more the possibilities. Looking at the small leaf in her hand, Chelsea unravelled her thoughts, developing the thread as she went.

“Do you ever pluck leaves from people’s hedges as you walk past”, she asked John. “I think everybody does.”

He waited for the thread to unravel just a little bit, but he refused to take the baton.

“Am I destroying someone’s property or do they forfeit their rights because it’s sticking out into the road? You know, if someone has a tree and a branch pokes into your garden you are allowed to chop it off.”

“But you’re supposed to throw it back” said John, matter of factly. He enjoyed the fact checking but wasn’t seeing rich pickings in this conversation. Ordinarily, either party would readily defer to a closed answer but Chelsea was in mid-unravel.