Strings - Capstone Amal Al Shamsi (1)

Jasem
There were things that Hamza felt could not be done. That changed when he had a son. Jasem
had a small stitch along the back of his leg from when Hamza let him loose in their house.
Hamza blamed himself, on behalf of the rest of his family that would not outwardly do so
themselves. The image weighed heavily in his memory, finding his son splayed out on the
kitchen floor on his elbows, unable to keep himself up while he wailed. As he carefully picked
him up, he had rocked him gently but jerked every now and then as he tried to keep his
breathing in check. Hamza had wanted desperately to put him back on the ground, to ask his son
to stand, needed to see his legs hold his little body up. But the boy’s feet hung limply from his
father’s arms.
Lamya seemed to want to scream when she came running in. But the boy seemed to suck
up all the air in the room with his heaving sobs. On their ride to the hospital, their
seven-year-old girl sat in the front seat and Lamya lay in the back, face hidden in Jasem’s hair as
she held him. He thrashed every now and then, whining.
When the nurse called his name, Lamya carried the boy into the doctor’s room, not
looking back at Hamza and her daughter. They came out within a couple of minutes. Apparently
when the doctor asked the boy to stand, he simply got up to his two feet and ran around. Maybe
that was his first lie.
Still, doctors were worried that his muscles wouldn’t develop properly from the strain he
had experienced. His mother, wife, and himself would take turns massaging the boy’s legs to
stimulate muscle growth. They did so, once in the morning and later in the evening. But
sometimes more, when they weren’t sure if someone had tended to him. It all made for a very
pampered kid.
One morning, when the weekend spirit was smothered by a thick layer of smog, Hamza
sat with Jasem and his sister while they watched TV. The boy was on his back, kicking his legs
and annoying Haya who moved away to the floor. Hamza did not stop him, he felt his heart grow
lighter. The boy’s swinging legs now could bruise, everyone in the family had a blueish stamp.
“Are you going to massage?” Haya asked.
“Do you want to try?”
The girl turned to look at her brother. Hamza rubbed his palms together to warm them
up before lightly pressing them on his son’s shin. The kid bent his legs at the knee, recoiling.
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