Tag Archives: corruption

STEVE LEGOMSKY: A Modest Gratuity

Artistic, Submissions, , , , ,

Ironic that they named me “Mercy.” Am I supposed to show mercy or ask for it? They never told me.

Tomorrow I will sentence Slade for grand theft. I’ve accepted his modest gratuity.

Thing is, I’d already decided to go easy on him anyway. No harm, no foul, I figure.

Steve Legomsky is a former mathematician; Washington University law professor specializing in immigration, refugees, and human rights; and Chief Counsel of the immigration services agency in the Obama Administration. He has had visiting research or teaching appointments in twelve countries and has published three scholarly books (Oxford University Press and West Academic); numerous academic journal articles; one novel, “The Picobe Dilemma” (Booklocker.com, 2017); and short stories in The Ravens Perch, Fewer than 500, the Broadkill Review (forthcoming January 2021), Idle Ink (forthcoming Nov. 7, 2020), and Offcourse. Steve lives in St. Louis and loves his family, children, animals, and the Red Sox.

VIJAI PANT: The Election Meeting

Artistic, Submissions, , , ,

“Hunger has been banished,” he thundered.

The crowd roared. Kalawati, too, feebly cheered.

They had been ferried in a truck to the election meeting. Meeting over, she clutched the 500 rupee note which she had been promised and hurried home. She didn’t want to lose one more child to starvation.

Vijai Pant is a teacher in a school in India. In his free time he lets his creative juices flow as a freelance writer and poet.

Malnutrition’s Martyr

Artistic, Touching, , , , , ,

She had preferred it when her table was simply empty. An empty table could some day be filled.

What could you do with a table once it had become a grave?

Stilling her only child’s dying spasms, she emptied herself of tears, filling the empty places with resentment, determination, revolution.

This story is based on a title suggested by Ryan Culley-Waters.