Strings - Capstone Amal Al Shamsi (1)

Hamza could maybe trace it all back to something further back. Haya was about five
years old and Jasem was still a year away from them. He remembers that she still slept between
them even though her mother had said she was too old, and argued that at that point, she would
be too attached and never leave their bed. But the girl wore her mother down, it was hard to get
her back in her room after Hamza had let her sleep next to him.
He had been waiting for Lamya to return, window open beside his bed, getting antsy
from sitting at home all evening.
Perhaps she was drowsy on her way back home, she may have been feeling under the
weather at that time, or maybe something happened at work. It had been a strange time. Haya
had not been talking in school, unable to focus on the flashing lights. The teachers kept calling
them to explain that their daughter turned around and shut her eyes whenever they began
working with the projector screens. Hamza felt he understood, he imagined the light turning
into visible lines, smearing into streaks, pushing against his brain. She must have gotten it from
him, he hated sitting in front of his work screen, following the numbers that moved on a clean
yet jaded conveyor belt. Lamya had not not given up, in the evenings, she sat Haya in front of the
television and observed her.
Hamza recalled wondering when she would walk through the door, he tried to stay
awake. He had propped open the window so that the heat and flies buzzing would keep him up,
but fell asleep anyway.
He awoke to the sound of a car’s humming engine before it cut off. Haya did not move
from his side. About to turn over, he heard a car stopping and starting nearby, engine revving.
He angled his body as if to block the sound from the sleeping girl.
“Hamza!” a familiar voice cried. He sits up, feeling reluctant. “Hamza!” The voice is
wrung out to its last syllable.
He found himself outside their gate, looking at Lamya parked outside the neighbor’s
house, crying into her hands. The memory warps itself there. He sees her look back at him,
teary-eyed but also she doesn’t, she stays hidden inside her car, so impossibly far away. He both
rushes over and stays where he is.
“What are you doing there?” He calls out. The bricks are cold under his bare feet.
She might have said something.
“Did something happen?”
“I got lost,” she said.
“From where?” Hamza was standing next to her.
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