Lost Al-Mutair and the Nursery That Listened to His Compounds

A muted weight settles across Al-Mutair House, clearest in the abandoned nursery, where the domestic echoes of lullabies blended, once, with the private trials of Samir Abdulrahman Al-Mutair, a self-trained chemist who mixed compounds in secrecy among childhood keepsakes. Now the faint spark inside a misplaced flask whispers of an interruption that left the air heavy with possibilities he did not pursue.

A Spark Beneath the Chemist’s Quiet Experiments

Samir, born 1873 in Basra, inherited an inquisitive nature from his aunt Shahina Al-Mutair, whose scorched spoon for heating mixtures lies beneath the cradle’s skirt.

His evenings passed in careful ritual: grinding powders on a nursery stool, heating extracts over a candle hidden behind storybooks, testing faint reactions on scrap cloth. Order remains in scattered traces—labels written in formal Arabic script, funnels wrapped in linen to prevent chipping, notes squeezed between sketches of children’s animals. Even the cracked rocking horse seems angled to watch him work, a wooden witness to quiet alchemy.

When His Mixtures Lost Their Bearing

Neighbors whispered that Samir provided a household tonic that worsened a fevered child’s illness—an accusation he could not outrun. In the narrow hallway, a wicker basket of herbs spills brittle stems along the floorboards. Shahina’s scorched spoon shows a fresh hairline crack. A chemist’s notebook lies partly beneath a dresser, its final page torn unevenly. A trail of powdered sulfur dusts the wall’s base, wavering like a faltering signature. None of these marks declare guilt, yet each hints at a night shaped by sorrow rather than formula.

Only the faint spark inside the leaning flask remains—an unfinished reaction, paused before meaning took shape. Whatever halted Samir’s final experiment lingers in these abandoned rooms.

Al-Mutair House remains abandoned still.