To the editor:

The lack of pressure in retirement living here in the splendid isolation of beautiful Polk County, N.C. seems to create a widespread desire to leave evidence of one’s existence in print form. Poetry and memoirs abound.

Personally, I enjoy good fiction. I’m fairly confident there are scores of want-to-be authors residing in our county who are longing to write the great American novel.

I am suggesting “a modest proposal” for a marketable work: one of our two major political parties unknowingly nominates, as their candidate for president, a man who is a paranoid sociopath. 

In this man’s tormented mind everything is rigged against him – even a baby’s cry is part of the conspiracy. Suddenly he turns against his own party, for they, too, are part of his paranoid fears. Then his core constituency, not the sharpest pencils in the pack, start to catch on that this man is mentally unbalanced. 

What to do?

A significant portion of his supporters comes from the highly religious community. Is it a tad strange they back the thrice-married self-centered serial adulterer who is the antithesis of Christ’s life and message?

Playing against our protagonist is a powerful, bright, but a reputably sullied woman. The question looms: Would enough Bubbas lay down their AK 47s and vote for such a woman, or would the lack of sanity prevail? Would the protagonist’s party stick with him as they go down the drain together with a great sucking sound? 

Title suggestions for the suggested book might be the following: “Three Weeks to Judgment,” and/or “Three Minutes to Midnight.” But then, who would believe such a plot?

~ Doug Morris, Columbus, N.C.