Review: Aquarium by Elaine Chiew

Aquarium by Elaine Chiew
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This story is available at http://www.smokelong.com/aquarium-2

I have a liking for open or ambiguous endings which is what we have here. The narrator, an airstewardess, is visiting her brother and his new girlfriend in Norway. Clearly more used to warmer climes the story is full of contrasts between hot and cold, rural and city lives, between the siblings old life and her brothers new one, their unspoken communication irritating the Norwegian girlfriend, the changes in her brother's life irritating the narrator. How will this crowd of three work out? There is a hint, nothing more, at an abusive father. There's biting comment from the girlfriend saying "You should come visit more often" then asking "why stewardesses don't turn right around and work the return flight"

SPOILER ALERT - The story focuses on the previously dog lover of a brother's new found fad for their aquarium of tropical fish. I love the line "What do you know, love is many things, but it's also a bloated tropical fish" leaving the reader to ponder what or who caused the bloated clownfish!(which can become agressive in captivity)

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Review: Of Soulful Cheese and Melted Needs by Elaine Chiew

Of Soulful Cheese and Melted Needs by Elaine Chiew
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This short story got me with the title which encapsulates the whole tale beautifully. The story is available online at http://fictionaut.com/stories/elaine-...

Two youths of Indian extraction man the In-N-Out Burger bar off Interstate 101- Kukri, the chatty philosophiser "can an egg have a ghost?" and his sidekick the shyer, virginal Raj. They think they slow day is made when two girls come in and pay intimate attention to them. What's that old saying - 'if something is too god to be true, it usually isn't', yes that's what is happening here unbeknown to the two smitten boys.

SPOILER ALERT - the girls are using seduction techniques to rob the joint. Although they only get the few dollars in the till, one takes much more from Raj. Left spent and confused, Raj "felt robbed. Sad. Angry. Lost. But it wasn't his money". The boys share a "joint" of Kukri's mother's spice mix in consolation as Kukri plans a better approach to getting girls "Nirvana isn't reached by sitting on your finely-shaped buttocks under a tree...What we need is a car....then we go cruising" - so Indian I can hear the intonation :)

But it is the final paragraph that really makes this a poignant tale of virginity stolen "Raj wants to cry. But all he can do is watch the puff-rings Kukri blows out; they fill the air with a pang of dum aloo homesickness and the clandestine whiff of Punjabi girls" Beautiful.

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One hundred years to solitude by Sheila Ash

“One Hundred Years of Solitude”
Life changing when read at 20
Now lies abandoned in the charity shop
Evacuated along with all her other books
Her ‘things’ gathered from travels worldwide.
The colours of Holi, the pride of the Durbar Parade
The too-hard-haggled-over Mayan embroidery
Are but memories in the distant sands
Like Xpu Há and Tulum
Lost to the trundling cyclones that ripped through her mind.
Each new carers browses her memory book only once
No one to tell them where the pictures of deserted island beaches were taken (Mexico)
Where were those bustling marketplaces (India)
The endless sands seas (Sahara) and moonlight waters (Marquesas)
Their location and significance as uncomprehended as the Easter Island Moai
Her Heritage is now preserved in a few pages
recording her one hundred year journey to solitude.

© Sheila Ash, 7^th January 2018