Today, 9 December is International Corruption Day – a day we celebrate the rules and keep in check any bending.
But there are times good intentions bend the rules.
🗝️🕯️📜
9th December. The day her grandma passed. Not a day May would forget – for reasons she’d rather erase from memory.
May was a lawyer – and a law degree was the last thing she wanted on her list of accomplishments. The Toh family – hers – had assigned her the unwanted task of settling her grandma’s estate.
🪞🏚️💨
One she accepted – and regretted.
Grandma Toh.
Bukit Boon’s most upstanding council member had taken bribes.
A newspaper article written with words that shamed.
Bribes. Accusations.
Her grandmother – the woman she held in the highest esteem
May sifted hurriedly through the cluttered basement, flicking the dust off each album with hurried precision.
The dust mites parted to reveal her grandmother’s life – one she never knew.
But each album she uncovered wanted her to know.
The ledger glared at her, the yellowed pages aggressively promoting their secrets.
The pages parted with a silent call.
May’s fingers hovered over them, waiting.
📝💰⚖️
They couldn’t wait for very long.
Inside it were documents filled with names and numbers.
Ones that kept increasing.
Her grandmother’s offshore account had accumulated more money than May had ever thought possible.
A hidden account. Belonging to the Saint of Straight-Lacedness.
May’s eyes hovered over that page of revelation, stunned for a few moments.
The Saint of Straight-Lacedness was also the Devil of Crookery.
📜💌🖐️
May fingered the note – and it stayed in place.
It wouldn’t move.
Frozen by surprise – and understanding.
“Aunty Chong,” it read, “Thanks for paying our rent these past months. We would have been evicted otherwise.”
So the money had gone into a dense, grey corridor.
One where mistakes were as striking as good deeds.
Her grandma’s heart had bent where ethics wouldn’t – and saved.
Whether rightly or wrongly was anyone’s guess.
🏡💛🌗
May left the ledger in the basement – she never showed it to anyone.
The bribes – an offbeat act of integrity.
Out-of-sync, but not hurtful.
Her grandmother was but human.
A mix of dark and light.
Able to compromise.
Doing wrong to protect.
🕯️🗝️💭
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