Strings - Capstone Amal Al Shamsi (1)

The holding cells were lined with a long metal bench. Along the wall, the bricks were
painted over in a clean, rubbery white. There seemed to be no more than four. Dull navy bars,
evenly spaced out, seperated the cells from the hall. There was a sharp scuffing of shoes as they
approached the one on the right. Jasem stood upright, peering out. His face was red and swollen
on one side, but not worryingly so, like he had been leaning on his cheek for a while. He looked
like he hadn’t slept, his coat was rolled up to his elbows, like it didn’t occur to him that he could
take it off. His hair stood up around his face. It was a bit of a pathetic scene, like the boy had
read the wrong script and thought he was somewhere else, somewhere morbid. It’s just a room,
barely even a cell.
“Who is this man to you?” The officer asked from behind them, knocking his knuckles
on his badge.
“Haya!” his son cried. He then looked at his father. Hamza feared the boy would cry.
“What now?” Hamza turned to the officer.
His daughter was whispering to Jasem, placing a hand over his on the bars.
“Shall we sit down and talk?” the officer said.
The man let Jasem out and went through the formality of cuffing his wrists together.
This made his face tighten. They were led down the hall to another clean, unremarkable room
with three metal chairs and a collapsable table.
“One at time,” the man said to Haya, but the thought of her being alone with him was not
something he would allow. Hamza argued with them until they let her come in. Another officer
entered after her.
Once they got the setup right, Hamza looked at his son warily. The boy’s tears had dried,
he could follow the streaks down his cheeks.
The men handed Hamza a folder and ran him through the available options, but he was
half-listening. From the corner of his eye, Jasem was pretending to listen to his sister, but his
eyes kept flitting over to his father.
“At the end of the day, he is an adult, and it is his call,” the original officer told him.
“Then why did you call me over?” Hamza asked, trying to be discreet.
The man grinned a little.
Hamza didn’t know what to say so he kept quiet until the other men left the room to
make some calls. Haya petted his hand, saying something under her breath that made the boy
smile a little. Jasem would have seemed his usual, casual self if he hadn’t been sniffling in
between, a desperate effort to keep his nose from running, still soft from the tears.
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