Short Story Review: Anabasis by Amal El-Mohtar
on Sheila Ash (India), 23/Sep/2020 04:18, 34 days ago
AnabasisbyAmal El-MohtarMy rating:5 of 5 starsI read this as part of the collectionNevertheless, She Persisted: Flash Fiction Project.This story can be foundonline. First, I thought I had better check what "anabasis" meant - "Anabasis (from Greek ana = "upward", bainein = "to step or march") is an expedition from a coastline up into the interior of a country" according toWikipedia.Upon starting to read this I was completely entranced by an early section which I found rivetingly poetic -"My real mouth is full of sharp teeth and a sharper tongue, three languages coiled like snakes in my throat, scaly and silent. My real mouth is an armoury of words forged in the furnace of my chest, hot as a spitted sun. My real mouth is a storm, and my voice is thunder.To pass among you I wear a different mouth: full lips unparted, always smiling. I paint it pretty colours. It speaks only when spoken to, softly. To pass among you, it tells you stories: I am sweetness. I am sunshine. I am here to hold your hand through the horror of my name. My mouth is a coin, and I spend it. "According to the publishers, the story was inspired bya 2017 news storyabout the trecherous border crossing in the snow into Manitoba for refugees seeking Canada which reports that "A two-year-old member of a large group of refugees who walked into Manitoba from Minnesota ..told his mom he wanted to die instead of finish the walk". Heartbreaking.El-Moktar's writing is stunning, she uses theSumarian poem,Inanna's Descent into the Underworldto contrast with the mother's walk across the snow "Borders are shape-shifters,too: they change what goes through them. Time was, the only border worth crossing was into the underworld, to fetch back a lover's life" That writer is Canadian is extremely relevant to this piece - her passport, her struggle to remain Canadian in light of the border guard eyeing her as Arab, as Muslim. Her empathy with the predicament of those crossing"If I could take each of my words and lay them in the snow at her feet. If I could.. eat this distance between us. If I could devour this border, if I could tell it to smile while I broke its teeth, if I could unsheathe the sword of my mouth and strike it down, if I could thread the needle of my mouth and stitch good shoes for her baby, if I could cut a path into this country with the sharpness of my tongue..." Unbelievably poignant.I am very impressed by this piece, my mouth, my words fails to convey how much. 5 stars are not enough.View all my reviewsashramblings