Strings - Capstone Amal Al Shamsi (1)

Cavity
Faisal left New York, in stages. He was gone by their final year of college.
New York City had tasted like youth, but it felt watered down towards the end of his time in
college. He could pinpoint the last moment to a dingy supermarket with harsh overhead lighting
and a rolled-up mattress.
“You’re just telling yourself that,” Raed said, “To make yourself feel better.”
He inspected a can of tomato sauce before he shook it.
“Get the glass one. Tastes better,” Salem said.
Hamza felt they should all shut up.
Faisal was clasping the handles of the metal basket, pulling them apart and clacking
them together, probably not even hearing the noise he was making. Supermarkets were lit like
interrogation rooms. The fluorescent light distorted Faisal’s face, dragging his skin down with its
weight. He somehow looked darker, his nose cast a sharp shadow like it was cutting his mouth in
half. That morning his sister had finally broke it to him that their father was out of work and he
would soon be asking his son to come back home from America to help out.
“Listen, let’s go one last time. I’ll invite you all to the chicken place,” Hamza said, holding
out a hand to take the basket. They were buying groceries for the first time in months, in a bid to
help Faisal save enough money to stay.
“No, stupid. You go, if you want it,” Faisal said.
“I know you want it. Don’t make me eat alone, I’ll look like a loser,” Hamza told him.
Raed snorted. “Everything happens for a reason.” If there was one of the guys that
Hamza could not deal with, and they all took their turns on the list, it was Raed.
“It’s the truth,” Salem said.
“Very philosophical.”
“That’s basically telling me to fuck myself,” Faisal told him. “You know what? Forget that
I brought it up. Can we shut up about it?” He moved down the aisle with his basket, pretending
to look at the products. He picked up a jar of dusty yellow cheese.
“Salem, do you honestly believe?” Raed was still asking. “Everything for a reason,
whatever.”
Salem secured the bag of chopped lettuce in the crook of his arm. Under his eyebrows,
his eyes were moving slowly. “I want to,” he said.
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