“Are you sure nothing’s broken? I think your arm is broken,” Daoud informed me. We were playing doctor in his room. The game had started with a request that I be the patient and tell Daoud what was wrong with me. Thinking like an adult, I offered that my arm hurt, and I had a headache. This, apparently, did not cut it.
“Yes, you’re right. My arm is broken,” I concurred.
“And your legs,” he decided, nodding with satisfaction. “Both legs are broken. Here, here, here, and here.”
“Oh my! Will you give me a cast?”
“Nope, I’m going to give you new legs and new arms that are better than your old ones”.
Obediently, I lay down on the x-ray machine (aka his bed) while he covered me with the casts and band aids (aka blankets) that would give me new legs.
“Your head is broken,” he told me next, before turning his attention to his younger brother. Ayoub was attempting to climb onto the bed and join me in the x-ray machine/operating theatre. “Ayoub’s eye is broken!” Daoud declared triumphantly. Then he waved his hand in a sweeping motion. “I gave him a new one and made him better.”
The game continued in much the same manner until I was basically composed of prosthetic limbs, a new stomach, and a new head. I wasn’t so sure he was Dr. Daoud at this point, more like Dr. Frankenstein, and I was most definitely his Igor.