Strings - Capstone Amal Al Shamsi (1)

Fire
A firetruck hurtled past from behind, forcing Hamza’s spine inward and lengthening his
stride. The hose dangled from behind, flirting with the ground. Firetrucks, ambulances, police
cars with their sirens on, Hamza used to look out of the window and it was like seeing a grim
reaper. How arbitrary, the fate that led them to the house on the same street but not his house.
What must it be like to grow up in New York as a child, he thought, the sirens calling like bird
calls.
The sound made him loosen up, a call back to the fire in which he made a hot fuss and
everyone stayed in their houses until it died down.
No reason behind it, supposedly, that palm trees spontaneously combust into flames
sometimes. They are essentially built like candle wicks, from what he’s seen, ready to burn down
from the tip of the frond to the base within minutes. It can’t be said whether palm trees are
genetically predisposed to this behavior, if they are just bad seeds, or if it is purely circumstance.
Back home, there were so many quiet days in the neighborhood after the children got old
and began to scatter from their family home. Hamza’s family home was a couple of streets away
from the sea, close enough to smell the salt in the air but too far to hear the waves, see any blue,
or get any cool air. Perhaps it had always been the same way. Everyone confined their troubles
within their personal estates and stayed in the car until the gate thudded shut. It was many years
after Qasim’s german shepherd got loose and swallowed concrete. That was one of the final
grand occurrences. It took a few days of dealing with the men from the construction site at the
corner of the street, paying off for the materials, burying the animal in the patch of land behind
their house, between two old palms. Neighbors cooked meat outside in peace for the first time in
years, tyres’ skid marks reached their gate uninterrupted, and the men bringing water to the
others up in the scaffolding could call out to each other in their language leisurely. There was a
flurry of being alive, but then that became their new quiet.
In the patch of land opposite their house, Hamza had asked Qasim to place a marker
over Big Ben, the german shepherd. They were both still in school at the time, Qasim not for
much longer. Maybe Big Ben could tell that his favorite was close to leaving, so he died quietly in
the back of the house.
Hamza knew his brother well, he knew he wouldn’t show any sort of sentimentality like
that unless it seemed against his will. Qasim yanked at a dry frond then drove it into the mound.
When he was done, he rubbed his palms together, where the skin was peeling.
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