The Hedge Fund Sparrow

A sparrow fluttered past Gerald’s window.

It was his fiftieth birthday, and forty years since everything changed. June 5th. The day Grandpa met his demise in the middle of Main Street, run down by a speeding car that didn’t see the old man stumbling across the lanes, searching for something he’d never find. The family unraveled after that.

But there was something worth holding on to in that mess. Grandpa loved birds. He often pointed them out as they fluttered over his burgeoning back garden, where Gerald liked to sit as a child and imagine he was safe within a fort of green. To see one this morning…perhaps it was a nudge to become someone who notices the small things again. Better than who he’d been becoming, anyway.

This sparrow flew closer and settled on a wide branch outside the window. Its pudgy face and downturned beak gave the impression of a permanent frown. Reminds me of my boss, Gerald thought, pocketing the line for the next dinner party.

He’d be hard-pressed to find a manager worse than Dawson Williams, his overlord at Thornbrook Management. A hedge fund. The job started as a lifeboat – tuition, mortgage, Mom’s meds – then became the ocean. Decades later, he was still paddling. Even Benny, his junior analyst, kept vanishing for “compliance training” no one could describe, drifting back glassy-eyed and over-caffeinated. The water was full of Bennys.

The bird jumped onto the windowsill. Instead of pecking around for food, it stared straight at him. Not the side-tilted, one-eyed look from nature documentaries. This was head-on. Dead to rights.

Peculiar. Gerald turned to his pan of bacon, closing his eyes for the kind of whiff that widens the nostrils. When he opened them, the bird sat on the edge of the empty plate beside the stove. It chirped louder than seemed possible for its size.

“Gerald!” High-pitched but unmistakable. “It’s me, Williams!”

His brain stalled. The pop of a particularly thick slab brought him back. He checked for a camera and spotted nothing. He leaned out the window, ready to catch someone with a boom mic. No luck.

The bird was still there when he returned, and against dignity he bent to speak to it.

“Hello?” he said, not believing any of this.

“It’s your boss, Mr. Williams,” the little thing said.

“B—boss?”

“That’s right. Happy to see me?”

Had his inner monologue broken into reality? The kitchen floor turned to Jell-O beneath him. This was a dream, surely. He tapped the pan’s hot edge to verify it, a technique he recalled from an old movie.

“Ouch!”

“You’re not dreaming, you dimwit,” Williams said, hopping to the stove hood, inches from Gerald’s nose. “Yes, I’ve turned into a bird. I know this is a shock. You’re not delirious, and you haven’t been drugged.”

“You’re pulling my leg. Not sure how, but you’re pulling it.”

“Nothing’s being pulled.” Williams fluttered, impatient. “You’ve been a competent man for us. Done very solid work. There are secrets to the industry that you haven’t been privy to. They’re arriving all at once this morning. We need your help.”

“Wha—”

“Listen,” Williams said. “There’s a force above us all, people with genuine power. They can do things you’ve never dreamed of. They figured out how to time travel without anyone noticing.”

“Time… travel? With birds?”

“They put our brains into the birds. Sparrows specifically.” His wings trembled with agitation. “Think about it. They’ve looked the same across centuries. Agile and quick, perfect for listening, small enough to nudge a detail around.”

“In all my years, I’ve never heard anything more—”

“Yes, yes. Pull up your britches and move on. They’re sending us back to 1985, and I need you to replace me on this mission.”

Gerald hesitated, hoping he’d misheard. “This isn’t real. I’m not becoming a stinking bird!”

An exasperated sigh whistled through Williams’s beak. “You are. For five million dollars and a promotion.”

He ate bacon straight from the pan. “What was that?”

“You heard me. Five million for a few hours.”

The uncanniness knotted his stomach. Williams wasn’t exactly trustworthy. But it was a hell of an offer, and a leap of faith like this might be exactly what he needed. The kind that Grandpa always used to take. Perhaps he’d even get off bacon.

“Just how would you turn me into a bird?”

Williams hopped off the plate and strutted around the counter. “It’s painless. Bordering on enjoyable. Prior to, you’d just need to take my tracking card—” He lifted his wing to reveal a small card attached to him, “—and stick it on your arm. Voilà!”

Five million. Five million.

“Alright, what’s the mission?”

After Williams’s brisk explanation and a harrowing few seconds of transformation, Gerald matched him. He tested his wings, fluffed his feathers, felt the mechanics of flight lock into place. Counters became cliffs. He looked toward the sky in the same way a fish might regard the sea. It felt almost natural.

“Fly to those coordinates,” Williams said from the sill, resting a wing on Gerald’s back in a friendly manner. “Meet the flock. The ringleader will brief you there.”

“And what will you be doing instead?”

“I’ll be right here, waiting. Off you go!”

Soaring up to the clouds was easier than expected. Soon he spotted a group of small black specks in formation toward the city. He tucked his wings, accelerated, and slid into the unmanned bottom-corner slot.

“Williams!” the leader shrilled as he arrived. “Confirm TTT code!” If a sparrow could sound like his JROTC drill instructor, this was it.

TTT… Gerald looked at the small laminated card affixed under his wing. It still had Williams’s name and ID photo. A long series of numbers sat under them, and TIME TRAVEL TRACKING ran across the bottom.

“TTT-919238120837!” he shouted, hoping he’d be heard. The rushing wind overwhelmed his new senses.

“That tracks! We have Williams! Hold formation! Bank left!”

They cut sharply west. The skyline began to break through the late-morning fog.

“Hey. Hey, you.” The sparrow on his left flew in close and talked through the side of its beak. “Are you Gerald? It’s Benny, your junior analyst at Thornbrook.”

“Benny! They got you too? What the hell is happening?”

“Bank right!” the commander barked. They were crossing the river.

“We’re all in the same boat,” Benny said. “Been training a year. Back row is Johnson, Stevens, Cavanaugh. All late additions.” The row tipped their beaks in unison. “We’ve been talking. Cavanaugh thinks he knows why Williams was flustered Friday. He left a black envelope open when he rushed for his afternoon cigar. They were gonna kill him after this mission. He just pulled you in to save his own skin.”

That bastard. “They can do that?”

Cavanaugh switched places with Benny. “Some of the letter showed. Subject line said PRIME RULE VIOLATION. Audit tag was Beneficiary Debt Zeroization—Unauthorized. And the schedule flag—SEVERANCE RUN. I didn’t dare touch it to read the rest, but I saw the look on his face. He was a dead man walking.”

Gerald hadn’t felt hot anger like this in years. He sweat profusely through his feathers as the windows of the skyscrapers drew close. “You can’t change anything in your own life when they send you back?”

“Nope. That TTT card is foolproof. Can’t remove it. Shows them exactly where you are. Only pre-determined mission-related activities are allowed.”

An idea sparked in Gerald’s head. “He put his card on me before I transformed. Does that mean I could take it off myself?”

The entire row stared down at him.

“How the hell did he do that?” Cavanaugh said, dumbfounded.

Benny flew closer again. “Normally it fuses during the morph,” he said. “But if he had you clip his tag onto you beforehand, it might not be fully bound. Go ahead and try to rip it off. We’ll block the commander’s view of you.”

Gerald bent his wing to get a good look at where the card was attached. He could see a clip deep within the pressed feathers underneath, tangled in what looked like ten different complicated knots. He grabbed at the thickest knot with his beak and pulled, but nothing budged. The card was buried in there as if it was a part of him.

“It’s now or never, man! Rip that thing off and get the hell out!” Benny screamed. The junior analysts dropped into single file as the front rows flew into an open window.

Gerald chomped furiously at the clip with the sharpest point of his beak. Pain burst from the spot. It felt like knifing his own stomach. One last excruciating pull tore it free with a tuft of bloody feathers. As the card fell, Gerald ducked out of formation, narrowly missing a nasty collision with the mirrored glass. He thought he saw Benny look back and give him a small smile as he went, so much as a beak could.

Fuck you, Williams! Gerald thought. He glided over a few boroughs before settling on a nondescript ledge concealed by the leaves of an oak. Everything was a blur. His side throbbed, but the bleeding had stopped.

There was no way for them to find him here, he told himself. He was still a bird stuck in… when was it again? Forty years ago, Williams had said. 1985. Was a ten-year-old version of himself out there? He dropped to a newspaper stand on the corner. The paper through the dirty yellow window read June 5, 1985.

What were the chances? The day that changed everything.

They wouldn’t recognize him. Perfect. He launched off the stand. The morning’s insanity faded along with the pain, and an intense curiosity took its place. He’d forgotten what that felt like.

He passed the land that would become his townhome. Construction hadn’t begun. His childhood house sat a neighborhood over. The old evergreen on the hill, tire swing hanging from the thickest branch. The picnic table with the blanket waiting, ready for Mom’s casserole. It looked like an album cover of his youthful summers. He ached to stop and be there again, but kept flying.

It wasn’t long before he came upon that stretch of Main Street. He recognized the median, and the memory flooded back. Grandpa lying still in the hard gravel between brown grass and asphalt; cars speeding past, ignoring him; his parents kneeling together to identify the body; red ambulance lights strobing off of his plaid and denim; the slam of the back door and the end of his innocence. Ten-year-old Gerald had watched it all from behind the back seat window, not daring to come any closer.

He settled into a nearby tree, curled his tiny claws around a branch, and washed away the years of dirt he had piled on his memory. The green digits of the car clock from that day. 5:45. That felt right. He would wait.

Just as the sun ducked below the top of the treeline, rustling came from the trees. Grandpa stumbled out into the clearing below, leaf-strewn and dirt-smeared. The first dementia symptoms had yanked him from home. Seeing it made Gerald want to cry, but birds didn’t cry, as far as he knew.

He dove into Grandpa’s path before he stepped into the street, fluttering like a madman. Grandpa’s skin looked melted by fatigue; his eyes, once vibrant, were a washed-out grey green. But the frantic motion snagged his attention. Gerald darted closer. Grandpa, delighted to see a bird, stumbled back into a tree in shock.

A car swerved over. A young couple rushed out.

“Sir, are you alright?” the man asked.

“Call the cops, honey,” the woman said, pouring the last of her water into Grandpa’s mouth.

Gerald settled on his shoulder, ignoring their baffled looks at his thankful chirps.

The police cruiser arrived along with a vibrant June sunset. A bird wouldn’t be welcome inside, Gerald assumed, and he resigned to flying above all the way to the hospital and then back home.

Everything was just as he remembered it. The soft glow of the window lights, manicured flower beds leading to the front door, a basketball hoop standing at the end of the driveway. Mom and Dad burst from the front door as the red and blue lights flashed against the brick. Gerald's heart swelled.

The police officer guided Grandpa out of the back seat and into their arms; they hugged and sobbed, answering questions between embraces.

Gerald perched on the cruiser’s hood and stared at the door, where ten-year-old him peered around the side, half hidden. Fever dream, science experiment, or illegal bacon drug, he didn’t care. To see his smaller self walk down the path and into the family they used to be, to watch Grandpa grab his face and grin—something old and heavy lifted away.

He floated over to his own tiny shoulder as dinner began. Mom and Dad jumped.

“There’s the little guy!” Grandpa said. “Still hanging around!”

“Can we keep him?” little Gerald asked.

Grandpa smiled, the wrinkles around his bright eyes alive again. “Only if you help take care of him.”

They laughed, and the sound filled the kitchen like light. The smell of summer burgers just off the grill filtered in from the back porch. Gerald even managed a peck of bacon before it went under a bun. He remembered now. It was Grandpa’s favorite. Something else he’d buried.

The pull, when it came, was gentle. The cozy table thinned into the square of his kitchen window. He stood at his stove again. The bacon had cooled into amber ruins. His own human face reflected at him from the oven door.

He thought he’d imagined the whole day until he noticed a new photo on the fridge. The Polaroid was marked the year 2000: Grandpa smiling behind the picnic table on the hill, the entire family together as they dug into a birthday cake that read STILL HANGING AROUND.

But Gerald wasn’t in it.

His place at the table was a pale smear of overexposure. In the corner, a black stamp read:

UNAUTHORIZED ALTERATION DETECTED. REPORT IMMEDIATELY TO COMPLIANCE.