Strings - Capstone Amal Al Shamsi (1)

“Who is Eisa?” one of the other girls asked.
“Ah,” Hamza nodded. “He’s changed his name, has he? For a grownup one. Let me go
inside and inform his mother of his outstanding achievements.”
The kids shrugged. Hamza snickered, somewhat amused.
He continued to circle around until he ran out of seeds, licking the salt off the corners of
his mouth. As he narrowly dodged some swinging children, he found Eisa crouched by a faded
hopscotch outline, chewing on the sunflower seeds. Hamza’s sunflower seeds. The boy had
swiped them off the bench. He was eating them– shell and all.
Within a fraction of a second, Hamza felt indescribable rage. The sun and all its sons
could learn envy for the first time in this rage. The boy’s eyes flitted up to him.
“Can I have these, sir?” he asked. He held up the crumpled packet.
The contents of his angry spell could fill two whole days.
“You have already helped yourself,” he told him. He walked away and sat on the
pavement by the school’s back entrance until the bell rang. Hadn’t he already spent the last
drops of his patience on thieves?
His knees ached.
Still, the day felt incredibly stretched out. Outside, his son’s foot was hovering over a
trap. He was waiting to fall to the ground.
Hamza’s knees ached.
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