Most thrillers, especially those written by narcissistic sociopaths, feature a character best described as a Mary Sue, a thinly-veiled representation of what the author could have been, if only (s)he had stuck to that regimen of push-ups or paid more attention in school. In this little exercise of mine, the hero would enter the stage in like fashion:
Hard-hitting investigative journamalist Ben Gleck read the anonymous memo in consternation. An observer peering into his studio would first notice hair the color of an opossum's pelt, cut in a style out of fashion by fifty years, crowning a roundish head, with a strangely ageless face, miraculously unlined by a beseiged nation's cares and displaying the pudgy petulance of a defiant fourth grader. Although his body displayed the pulpy softness of sedentary middle-age, or perhaps of middle-aged sedentism, he displayed the strength and muscular control of that other pulpy and amorphous creature, the mighty octopus. Years of boozing and drug abuse had killed off all of the weakest cells in his body- the fires of addiction and irresponsibility had refined the ore of his corpus into steel- a pale, flabby steel, but steel nonetheless. His dimple-knuckled hands, the color and texture of Wonder Bread, although he had never done any physical work in his life, had gained the tenacious, gripsome strength of bear traps, through his recent handling of chalk for five hours each week. While uneducated, he had honed his intellect into a ball-bearing keenness by reading the works of racialists and Nazi apologists in a cursory fashion. He was reading on this night as well, reading a memo which was to change his life forever:
AMERICA IS IN DANGER!!! YOUR ARE ONLY HOPE. SOCIALEST NEGRITUDE AND ALINKSYISM ARE IMININT!!! MEET ME IN ST LOUIE!
Ben pursed his lips, then muttered under his breath, "It's the day I always feared... it's the repeal of the republic and the onset of oligarhy."
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