Almost Surely Dead

by Amina Akhtar

Death shouldn’t unnerve me this much; I was used to people dying around me. But this time it was different, and I couldn’t shake how it made me feel: like I hadn’t escaped, I’d only postponed things.

I preferred being ignored. I knew how to navigate that.

There was so much about my own culture I didn’t know. That I’d run from.

I needed to do that. Be more like her. Stop letting things happen to me and instead make them happen. I just had to figure out how.

Food over flowers, that was my rule. Snacks would always win me over.