When the daylight has faded

Hedging (#leave)

Mr Swenson swore. The neighbours' rambling rose had looked like such a sweet innocent little thing with its tiny white blossoms when the Petersons had planted it two years ago.

"What's wrong, love?"

Mr Swenson's wife had heard his expletives and came to investigate what had disgruntled her dear Charles so.

"I cut their bloody rose two weeks ago. Filled the entire bin. Now look at it!"

"Shush Charly, they might hear you!"

"I don't care anymore whether those idiots hear me, Mara. I've got a garage full of hedge clippings despite the fact that I've never planted a hedge in my life, a bin full of white rose blossoms that aren't mine and don't get me started on the bamboo that has taken over our grass. Who in their right minds plants bamboo anyway?"

"Charly, keep it down, please! I'm as angry as you are but I don't fancy a garden-fence war."

"You didn't have to get rid of the dog poo on our front doorstep this morning, love! Mr and Mrs Express-Yourself had to prove their individuality by getting matching tattoos and buying the same type of dog like everyone else." Charly raised his voice. "And now the mangy mutt either barks or shits!"

"Shh, Charles, leave it now! What if they hear you?"

"That's the bloody point, Mara! I've had it." Charles peered through the remaining leaves of the offending hedge. The Petersons' patio door was still closed. "The next time Mr Peterson lights up one of his cigars in the garden, I'm over there, I'm telling you! I don't care if I have to rip one of their precious graveyard-hedge trees out to accomplish the feat but I'll get to the man, rip the stinking nicotine turd right out of his mouth and stick it in his mutt's butthole."

"Enough, Charles!" Mara's cheeks had turned bright red. "Leave the poor dog out of this. Rocky has done nothing."

"Nothing but howling all day like a rabid wolf and shitting like a pigeon on ecstasy all over our property. Cleaning up your own crap, literally and figuratively, must be a foreign concept to the posh pricks."

Mara grabbed her husband's arm, trying to pull his bulky body inside, but Charles stood his ground.

The Petersons' back door remained closed.

"The next dog shit I find will end up in their letter box and the next hedge clippings on their lawn. The nerve of them!" Charles gave his best impression of Mrs Peterson, raising his voice and playing with an imaginary bleached strand of hair. "We do cut our hedge, Mr Swenson. On our side. Of course, we won't cut your side of the hedge. Please stop bothering us with your ridiculous demands."

"Charly, come inside now. You are giving yourself a heart attack."

Mara tugged harder; Charly's volume went up another two notches.

"I will give them a good piece of my mind, next time I see them, the bloody..."

The Petersons' patio door opened with a creak. Mrs Peterson emerged and spotted Charly through a thin patch in the hedge.

"Afternoon, Mr Swenson. You are finally cutting the hedge. Good on you!" Mrs Peterson chirped.

"Afternoon, Mrs Peterson! Yes, it was time! It appears that the trimmer you recommended did the trick."