Strings - Capstone Amal Al Shamsi (1)

“Hamza, you could know and not want to be that person. Not want to do those things.
And that’s perfectly all right. That’s why I told you, there is nothing wrong with doing nothing.
Purpose is the thing that you were fed to get up in the morning, open the door, and trod off.”
“Deniz, how do you know all that?” Hamza said, turning to her again.
“Because it is true. Now, can you tell me? I feel that it is important for me to know so I
can be genuine in giving you advice.”
“My ears are bent from advice.”
Deniz smiled.
“There are so many things I did because I had to.”
“Unselfish acts?”
“Something like that.”
“And now what?”
Hamza picked up the mug again because he was not sure what else to do. “I escaped it for
a while, but it comes back. It came back, and I just am not ready to be that person again.”
He could tell that Deniz was looking at him from the corner of his eye.
“It is my son that needs to be here, talking to you, not me,” Hamza told her. “I don’t care
that he plays cards and steals, or that he is a fool and not even good at it.”
“Did you ever ask yourself why he does that?”
Hamza did not. “It doesn’t matter.”
“He may feel a loss. He may be filling it through these measures. Sometimes the loss
from being neglected–”
“Stop, not that,” he said, he wasn’t willing to entertain it.
“All right,” she said. With one expert move, she switched, “So you don’t care. Then what
is the issue.”
“I can’t bring myself to do anything about it.”
“Do you have to?”
Hamza sighed. “Have you not been listening?”
“All right. Well, what is stopping you from just getting it over with?”
“I don’t want to help. I can’t forgive him for bringing my mother into it.”
He stood up, not expecting Deniz to say anything at all. He walked over to the window
behind her. If he turned, his elbow would knock into the back of her office chair.
“Maybe I just don’t care.”
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