Antoine Polgar

“STARVED FOR JUSTICE” by Antoine Polgar

Submitted to Contest #268

STARVED FOR JUSTICEYour character gets everything they ever wanted — only to realize the true costAntoine J. PolgarThings happen on a May afternoon the smartest person is not clever enough to foresee or understand. A paunchy retired academic Philip Kohl, the hero of this story, sits alone in the study of his Woodward Avenue, Buffalo home in the Parkside area house he shared with his wife Eugenia. She noticed that since the delivery of what appeared to be a piece of heavy computer equipment, he locked the door to his study and the electr...

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“THE PICKPOCKET AND THE GIGOLO” by Antoine Polgar

Submitted to Contest #261

THE PICKPOCKET AND THE GIGOLOON GRATITUDEAntoine J. PolgarGratitude is a virtue and ingratitude is a vice. The failure to accept misfortune out of gratitude for one’s good fortune is a kind of thievery. Gratitude is illustrated in parallel consolation scenes of the Robert Bresson film The Pickpocket and Paul Schrader’s American Gigolo. Even a loser like Michel, the pickpocket behind bars in Robert Bresson’s film The Pickpocket (1959) had the presence of mind to recognize his good fortune when Jeanne visits him in jail and he says “Oh, Jeanne...

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“A 2024 JATAKA TALE” by Antoine Polgar

Submitted to Contest #260

A 2024 Jataka Taleby Antoine J PolgarIn a town in Southern Vermont, a homeless wanderer and sometimes beggar, known only to town residents as Carlos, died suddenly on the bridge over the Saxton River with his faithful dog Prentice beside him. Prentice was usually comfortably ensconced on a pillow in a basket next to Carlos with a water bowl. When Carlos moved around town, Prentice preceded him on a leash attached to a shopping cart borrowed from the local supermarket that contained all of Carlos’ possessions. The bridge over the Saxton River...

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“DOING MY PART” by Antoine Polgar

Submitted to Contest #239

DOING MY PART               The Studebaker Commander It is Veteran’s Day 2021. I’m driving out of Manhattan alone in the 1953 two-tone blue Studebaker Commander Regal Starliner Two Door coupe sedan our mother bought second-hand in the summer of 1955 when she drove my brother and I cross-country. I was 16. It was the last summer my mother would spend with her two teenage sons. We were on a tight budget. I remember the hotel on Euclid Avenue in Cleveland, a motel with a s...

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“THE VAN” by Antoine Polgar

THE VAN By the time I got there, it was all over. I was too late. not only for what happened then but for history’s continuum. Everything that happened before and since my birth, including World War I and World War II (which wasn’t my fault) was over. As much as I might have hoped the depths of evil had been exhausted for all time, what happened made me wonder whether evil was taking up too much space to allow for goodness to prevail and if all that happened was just a rehearsal for what was to come. I never told anyone I knew the e...

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