Review – Fatima’s Minnesota Wish
In 2021, I tried to write or at least start one short story per day. Fatima’s Minnesota Wish came from a single-word prompt: carousel.
Background for this Minnesota Wish
Fatima’s sister Aaliyah is dying. Their parents have brought their children to the Mayo Clinic, in the hopes that somewhere, somehow, there can be a miracle and there will be a suitable donor. But time is running out.
For Fatima, who is in the seventh grade, school is a mystery. She is learning English on the fly, but at least she understands math, for the numbers are the same. In order to help her acclimate better (and faster), the school offers the services of its speech therapist for some individualized instruction.
Into this difficult and sometimes bewildering world comes an expression from the speech therapist, Miss Crane.
Go for the brass ring.
The first part of the story is Fatima figuring out just what that is, and hoping against all hope that it will be the one thing that saves her dying baby sister.
Plot
It’s all the Hussein family can do to try to keep their younger daughter alive. But every day, that gets harder and harder. Fatima, their elder daughter, is just trying to navigate life.
Fatima’s own grief and sadness are spiked with a dose of the novelty of being in the United States and learning English. And maybe talking about boys with her new friends. But then there’s that brass ring, and all it symbolizes.
Characters
The characters are mainly Fatima, her parents, Ali and Maryam, her sister, Aaliyah. At school, Fatima’s teacher is Mrs. Murphy. Her speech teacher, helping Fatima learn English, is Miss Crane.
At the hospital are Mr. and Dr. DePels and their daughter, Doris, along with Dr. Rosenthal. Also, there are Shmuly Baum’s parents, Herschel and Raya.
Memorable Quotes
Months went by, and of course Mrs. Murphy was right about the Minnesota winter. But it was only my parents and me who ever saw it. Aaliyah stayed in the hospital, month after month.
In the meantime, I was making friends with some girls: Nicole and Debbie. My father went to work at an engineering firm whenever he could. He would switch off with my mother, who would work in architecture, from home. But I could see how worried she was. It was hard for her to be creative. I suppose that’s understandable.
When May rolled around, the lovely weather got us all itching to go outside. Miss Crane used a rather odd expression with me. She said I should “reach for the brass ring”.
Rather than ask her what she meant, I decided to figure it out for myself. I just asked her for a hint, and she told me to go to a local park, to the carousel. She had to show me a picture, as I had never seen one before.
The park was open that weekend, and so I, in my halting English, asked the man running the carousel what the brass ring was. So, he showed me. There are rings in the center and, as your ride goes up and down and around, you lean over and reach out to try to grab one. And he said I could get any prize if I brought him one.
Rating
The story has a K rating.
Upshot for Fatima’s Minnesota Wish
I like the idea of this story probably more than how it actually came out. In part, this may be because it does not quite end. Rather, it just sort of runs out of gas. Which can happen with stories, naturally. Perhaps I will try to pick it up again in the future, particularly if it becomes a story to query or to self-publish.
Fatima’s Minnesota wish — maybe one day medicine will be able to grant it. #amwriting