Malia Akutagawa
Bio
Stories (2)
Filter by community
For Whom the Pueo Calls
I had never seen an owl up close before. When I lifted its lifeless body, I was struck first with how slight its weight was. The impressive wingspan, sharp claws designed to snatch small prey, and the owl's majesty in flight so contradicted this awareness now of the animal's fragility. The delicate bone structure, round face, small beak, and the light snuffed from its eyes demonstrated a universal truth – death pulls the curtain away on all of us to reveal our ultimate vulnerability. Cradling its body on my forearm, I stroked its light brown feathers speckled with black eye-shaped dots. Shifting it over, I patted the owl’s pillowy soft tufts of fine white feathers covering its underbelly and legs.
By Malia Akutagawa4 years ago in Families
Those Who Chose to Forget
One of the schools in Tlon has reached the point of denying time. It reasons that the present is undefined, that the future has no other reality than as present hope, that the past is no more than present memory ... Another maintains that the universe is comparable to code systems in which not all the symbols have meaning, and in which only that which happens every three hundredth night is true. -- Jorge Luis Borges, Ficciones: Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius.
By Malia Akutagawa4 years ago in Fiction
