Nesting Season by Anna Ling Kaye
CBC Books | | Posted: April 13, 2022 1:04 PM | Last Updated: April 28, 2022
2022 CBC Short Story Prize shortlist
Anna Ling Kaye made the 2022 CBC Short Story Prize shortlist for Nesting Season.
She will receive $1,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts and her short story has been published on CBC Books.
If you're interested in the CBC Literary Prizes, the 2022 CBC Poetry Prize is open for submissions until May 31.
You can read Nesting Season below.
Years ago, when Jeremy and his brother were boys in China, they had joined their village in killing all the sparrows. He was surprised to find he enjoyed it, the banging of the pots, the excited running in the streets. He appreciated sparrows, after all. They were small and quick like he was and he was sad they had to be on the Chairman's list of four pests. Flies and mosquitoes were hard to track down. Rats fought back.
But getting rid of the sparrows, which the Chairman said ate their grain, the whole country really got into that. The drumming went on for days. Each time a bird tried to land, the whole village rushed to startle them into flight again. When the birds finally fell, exhausted, straight out of the sky, the children made soft necklaces of their bodies, the small legs strung up in twine.
There was noise and laughter in the village's mud lanes, like Spring Festival come early. The whole country united to overcome the odds.
Now he's banging the pots again, every night at seven p.m. He's in Canada and he's an old man, almost 75. Lily, his oldest granddaughter, says the noise is for the health care workers, so they can hear the whole city's support from afar. He looks across the lawn at his neighbours. He doesn't know their names, but the couple is smiling, like they are all at a fun party. The lady is shaking a bell, and the man of the house is clapping his hands. A childish excitement sparks in Jeremy's chest. Vancouver is alive with the clanging.
The whole country is united, after all. When the prime minister's wife got the sickness too, it became clear this was serious. They are all in it together. Still, the hitting of pots reminds him of his brother Kai, and Jeremy is glad when the five minutes have passed, and he can go back inside. The street goes back to its usual quiet.
A childish excitement sparks in Jeremy's chest. Vancouver is alive with the clanging. The whole country is united, after all.
He's on the couch with tasselled pillows. He's just off the phone with Kai. The schools in Hong Kong have been shut for a month and the libraries and sports halls as well. The wet markets are abandoned and everyone is wearing masks, sometimes even in their own houses. Outbreak hotspots and store closings are shared online, checked more frequently than stocks, which is saying something for that city.
But still, Kai had said, the students and the workers are in the streets marching against the new rules China wants in place. People don't just walk away from school or work there. Especially with a virus like that — yet another virus, after the two others. During the lunch hour, Kai said, people fill the streets with their silent walking.
"But you stay home, right?" Jeremy had asked. "At our age."
"How can I?" Kai has always been the fierce one.
It's crazy, Jeremy thinks. Even if they are all wearing masks. Still, the protestors could get the whole city sick. Or is it better to be outside than indoors? It's not clear yet what spreads the sickness. In Canada, people are being asked to leave the masks alone, so the hospital workers can have enough. People have been attacked in the streets for wearing them. Asked to "go home." In Hong Kong, where virus outbreaks are not new, it is common sense to wear masks during flu season.
Jeremy had been planning to ask what Kai remembers about the sparrows. But Kai's mood had soured even at the mention of the pots and pans, the seven p.m. cheer.
"That idea came from Wuhan," he reminded Jeremy. "Because shouting makes the sickness spread. Locked in their own homes for months. They couldn't even cheer each other on."
Jeremy sits in his living room and thinks of the protestors walking in silence in Hong Kong. The trams stopped in their tracks. The protestors wear only black so they can't be identified when they get chased. They shield their faces from the cameras mounted on so many traffic lights and buildings. The masks are a new development, but they help with the anonymity too.
He meets a friend for golf the next day. Bill has thoughts of his own on Hong Kong.
"Those kids are just asking for it," Bill says. "Make trouble, watch it double."
Jeremy laughs, but he also steps away, just a little. He tests his golf club's weight with two fists. It's Kai he's thinking of. His brother marching with the students in Hong Kong. Bill grew up in Canada, the fourth generation of Wongs on this land. He doesn't have family on those faraway streets. A golf cart passes nearby and Jeremy thinks maybe it swerves a bit to keep away. Bill and him, the first two Chinese allowed in the club, all those years ago. There have been many more like them after that, generous donors all of them.
Still, the golf cart has avoided them. Gone out of its way. Jeremy kneels to inspect the white roundness of his golf ball and wonders if that would have happened with Mike Selzberg as his partner. Or Dave Pine. He really should talk to the drivers of that golf cart. He's been in Canada all these months, the same as them. They'll turn away from him politely. They won't call him names, but they might think them. They won't ask for him to be banned from the club, but they might wish it.
Silence, watch it double. No one wants trouble like that.
They'll turn away from him politely. They won't call him names, but they might think them. They won't ask for him to be banned from the club, but they might wish it.
It's early afternoon. Jeremy pulls up in front of his house, exhausted. It had been a mistake, going out. He's become so fearful, studying each door handle, each passing stranger, calculating risk.
The street is quiet and lovely. Cherry blossoms bursting pink and cheerful overhead, as if all the countries in the world haven't closed their borders to each other. Last spring, he would have taken a photo. Sent it to Kai and the others. He'd have quoted the Tang poets on the hopefulness of new seasons.
The prime minister's wife is feeling better now, she wishes all Canadians good health. Jeremy heard her say so on the radio on the way home. But on his phone, it says the Hong Kong police are forcing protestors to take the shaping wires out of their masks in case they are used as weapons. There had been an attempt to ban masks at public gatherings, even with the sickness all around. It is so people's faces can be seen. Police are tracking their identities. Showing up at homes and workplaces.
Jeremy gets out of his car. He hasn't heard from Kai in a few days. "Stay home," the radio tells Canadians. "Stay safe." Jeremy feels the pull of the living room. The comfort of his book.
A black thing falls from the sky. Sharp pain rakes across his scalp. He cries out, and just catches a glimpse of the crow as it dives for his head again. Nesting season. The crow shrieks at Jeremy to stay away from its eggs. He pulls his hand from his head, checking for blood.
"Here, take this." His neighbour has crossed the street to help. She tosses him a brightly coloured umbrella. It's not raining, but she has an umbrella open too, one of those transparent ones that halo her head. "The birds are so vicious at this time of year." The crow falls out of the cherry tree again. Its claws skitter off the plastic of her umbrella. The crow flaps away in a zig zag of dark frustration.
"She's just saying stay home and shelter," Jeremy jokes. He's catching his breath.
"You better hold on to that for now," she says, waving at his open umbrella.
Jeremy stammers thanks. His heart is still scattered.
At home, he washes his hands for a long time. He sprays the neighbour's umbrella with diluted rubbing alcohol. How many decades has he owned his house? When Jeremy's family first moved in, the people across the street had refused to speak to them. By the time the neighbour's house changed hands, everyone had gotten used to the silence. Jeremy puts a fresh tin of Oolong in a colourful bag with tissue. He puts it next to the borrowed umbrella. He'll bring the things to the neighbours at the seven p.m. cheer. He'll introduce himself and ask their names.
The neighbour's umbrella is propped against the doorsill. It is cheerful and silky and folded over like a sleeping bird. Not long ago, there was a sea of protestors' umbrellas overflowing the streets of Hong Kong. This is changing, with the sickness covering the world.
His granddaughter Lily calls to say she can't come over after all. It's for Jeremy's protection. Her parents are municipal engineers and must be at work in person. They don't want to gamble with Jeremy's health.
"We'll cheer at the same time, Grandpa," Lily says. "Together, but apart."
"I'll listen for you," Jeremy agrees.
Without Lily bringing the pots and ladles, he could just stay inside. Now the crow is patrolling the trees too, it's better this way. He has his book to read. He has his phone. Jeremy has been obsessing all afternoon about the day's crackdown in Hong Kong. Pepper spray and police vans. Arrests. He hasn't been able to reach Kai in more than a week. Jeremy looks carefully at each photo in the articles. He doesn't find his brother's face. This is good. It could also be very bad. Jeremy stops looking at the news. He'll play a fun online game instead, the one with the riddles.
When his family back in the village chose Jeremy as the one to educate, it was because he was quick with riddles like these, and reading and math. Jeremy went to boarding school in Hong Kong and never returned. He'd run far from his mother's one-room village hut, flown to college in Canada, built some kind of life. Tasselled couch pillows and golf in the afternoon.
There's a school in the village with his name on it. Jeremy hasn't been to it, but he knows it's there because he sent the money, and they sent the photo. The family name arched across the school gate in big red characters. He'd shown the photo to his granddaughter. They planned to visit someday. The airports will open again, and he'll show her their village in China.
Kai was the fierce one. Kai had stayed and cared for their mother. The sparrows were all dead from the noise, which left more insects to gorge on the grain. There was famine, but still Kai had stayed, even when friends and family were turned against each other. Their grandmother had drowned herself in the village well. When Kai was sent south for re-education, he tried the waters three times before he made it to Hong Kong. Oyster shells had cut his feet as he walked onto those safer shores. This is why Kai walks in Hong Kong. He knows trouble coming when he sees it.
This is why Kai walks in Hong Kong. He knows trouble coming when he sees it.
A clinking starts outside. Clanks of pots and pans. The blare of a trumpet. Vancouver is whistling and clapping. The pull of the streets is strong. Jeremy stands up. The book slides off his lap. Outside, he waves to the neighbours. They smile as they clap and make noise for the health workers. The crow, if it is watching, stays in its hidden nest. Maybe it is because of the umbrella, unfurled, doing its work. Jeremy keeps on walking. Soon, he will bring the gift across the street and introduce himself. But today he's pulled by the umbrella. He's out in the open. He's walking down the hill. He should turn back and get the car. He should turn back and be in his living room. It's getting colder with the sun going down. He doesn't have the right jacket.
The cheer tapers off and he walks in silence. The sky pinks to an electric red. It's stitched together with the black silhouettes of birds. They are flying home for the night. The wind rustles through their wings. It's that quiet.
He's sweating. He doesn't need that jacket after all. Jeremy walks and he thinks of the time he offered to get Kai set up with a house in Vancouver. Jeremy had made some money by then, brought their mother over to live her last days. "I've moved enough for one lifetime," Kai had said. Hong Kong had good work and friends and family. Jeremy, in his silent house in a quiet neighbourhood, had said he understood.
When Jeremy gets to the Chinese Consulate, the skies are dark. He stands in front of the tall white gates, cars lighting him up as they swish down the hill towards the sparkling shops. Even the nicest shops in Vancouver are empty these days, as people wait to understand the new illness. In Hong Kong, the shopping malls are emptier too. Until the protestors crowd the concourses, and then they are joined by the police.
The consulate gates are made of iron. At the edge of each gate, a large camera is turned down towards the street. Each camera has a small green light in it. With the new laws proposed in Hong Kong, even residents of that city can be taken to China for trial. Jeremy thinks of the protestors that filled a four-lane highway in Hong Kong. The universities barricaded by youth who believe home should be a place where they are free and prosperous. Jeremy thinks of what Kai would do. Jeremy thinks of what Kai cannot do. He faces the cameras and holds his umbrella high.
Umbrellas are good for sun and rain. They also block pepper spray. They fend off rubber bullets. They can be used to pry open barriers. They protect faces and identities. Umbrellas can no longer be bought online in Hong Kong. Jeremy's learned all this from his phone.
What was the phrase Lily had used earlier? "Together but apart." He wonders what the people in the cars speeding by make of him. They'll look away politely. They'll wish he'd go home. They might not even see him. The people behind the consulate cameras, though. They see him.
Jeremy stands under the streetlights in front of the consulate, umbrella up. The umbrella is yellow. He stands there, because he can.
Jeremy takes the crisp Vancouver air deep into his lungs. He should be tired from the walking. But his heart is pumping. Excitement thrums through him, energy pure and connected as those days of clanging pots in the village's narrow lanes. Jeremy stands under the streetlights in front of the consulate, umbrella up. The umbrella is yellow. He stands there, because he can.
Read the other finalists
- Me Against Jim Bailey by Susanna Cupido (Sackville, N.B.)
- Desire Path by Jeremy Elder (Toronto)
- Dinner With Friends by Nancy Hui Sulaiman (Windsor, Ont.)
- Beneath the Softness of Snow by Chanel M. Sutherland (Montreal)
About Anna Ling Kaye
Anna Ling Kaye is a writer and editor based in Vancouver. Her fiction won the 2021 RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers and has been shortlisted for the RBC/PEN Canada New Voices Award and the Journey Prize.
The story's source of inspiration
"This story brings together themes, occurrences and images I have been collecting for years as someone who lived in Hong Kong — before and after the handover, and more recently in Vancouver. Roddy Doyle's Life Without Children was one of the first fictional pieces set during the pandemic and I wanted to respond to it from an East Asian perspective. When I realized how the 7 p.m. cheer might resonate for someone with Jeremy's background and what his worldview might have been in the early days of lockdown, the whole story gelled very quickly."
First lines
Years ago, when Jeremy and his brother were boys in China, they had joined their village in killing all the sparrows. He hadn't expected to enjoy it, the banging of the pots, the excited running in the streets. He appreciated sparrows, they were small and quick like he was, and he was sad they had to be on the Chairman's list of four pests. Flies and mosquitoes were hard to track down. Rats fought back. But getting rid of the sparrows, which the Chairman said ate their grain, the whole country really got into that.
About the 2022 CBC Short Story Prize
The winner of the 2022 CBC Short Story Prize will receive $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts, have their work published on CBC Books and attend a two-week writing residency at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. Four finalists will each receive $1,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts and have their work published on CBC Books.
The 2022 CBC Poetry Prize is open for submissions until May, 31, 2022. The 2023 CBC Short Story Prize will open in September and the 2023 CBC Nonfiction Prize will open in January 2023.