How All Stories Should End: A Review of The Sky Husband by Easterine Kire

The Sky Husband.The book is a collection of eight short stories that depict varying stories, settings and plots that revolve around the theme of love.The stories are easy to read, capturing the hearts of the readers from the start.The book cover has an illustration by Ogin Nayam who brings to life a picture of a man with eyes that seem to stare into the heart of the beholder.After reading the book, one comes to an understanding of the 'blinding' beauty of the man on the cover who seem to be an embodiment of the 'sky husband' himself.I feel that Easterine Kire wrote this book especially for her women readers who believe in finding one's true love.The book comprises of various kinds of love stories -teenage love, mystical and dreamlike love story, love story that emerged during turbulent times -all telling stories of 'difficult' loves.The first story titled 'The Sky Husband' tells the story of beautiful Aniya, the beloved of her village.In this story, Easterine Kire uses strong women characters who stay true to their beliefs.It is the old woman Hami who teaches Aniya to believe in dreams and learn to interpret her dreams as "It is how God speaks to us" (Kire, 2).Aniya tells Hami of "the one who had come into her dreams" (5), of the one whose beauty was so immense that it was 'blinding'.The author gives a delightful twist to the Naga legend of sky wives and recreates it into a story of sky husbands.The second story 'Chan and the Blue Forest' retells the story of a man named Chan who went missing for two years during which he had fallen in love with a forest spirit with "the loveliest face you could imagine" (Kire, 34).The forest spirit enticed him with forest song that sang of sweet, lasting affection.He was brought back to reality when he met his own spirit who made him realize that life was still sweeter than the sweetest love.Chan, unable to let go of the allure of the forest spirit, wasted away after refusing every girl he met only to return to the forest to reunite with his forest wife.The story 'The Tracker' opens with a light-hearted scene depicting the usual husband-wife relationship in a comic manner where the husband is unable to find anything on his own.The story takes a serious turn as it tells the