The Frankenstein Candidate Read online

  “What is done is done. What matters now is to let Israel and the whole world know that we approve of it. If I may say so, it’s a great opportunity,” Olivia said afterward to Claire when they were alone.

  Olivia missed not being with her girls. Still a Senator, and disowned by everyone in her party except the President, she had continued to work long hours.

  It was Monday, March 29. It was almost midnight by the time she got back home. She planned to tiptoe her way into the master bedroom when she noticed Gary was still around, half-awake on the couch in the living room. Two wine glasses, one half-full, one empty, caught her eye, and a flash of remorse hurried across her mind.

  “Will you share a Syrah?” he said, his eyes glassy, from tears or the drink she could not tell.

  As he poured her a glass, the heaviness of the unspoken and the unresolved hung in the air. Rain battered the roof monotonously, as if its drums were calling for a truce.

  Suddenly, she felt her stomach rumble. She could not remember when she had last eaten. Making her way to the refrigerator, she noticed an untouched plate on the dining table. Moisture had touched the sides—for how long had the dish awaited its patron, she did not know.

  Another tentative step told her eyes what her heart already knew—it was her favorite: brandade canapes with cornichon pickles. She noticed a note sticking out of the bottom of the plate. Her heart missed a beat. Strong memories came flooding back. With trembling fingers, she raised the plate and pulled out the piece of paper. Scribbled on it were the words, “Olivia, my joie de vivre.”

  She rushed out, smiling radiantly even as her eyes moistened. Gary lay silently on the couch, slumped, his gaze steady, awaiting her response. She snuggled up to him in the meager space of the single couch and held his hand. Somehow, she had found within herself a way to forgive him. It relaxed her.

  Then she noticed a new frame on the wall. A hand-made reproduction of Guernica, Picasso’s blue, black, and white anti-war mural, displayed the emotional ravages of war, yet it hung almost gleefully on the frame. Before she fell asleep, her head on his chest, her eyes strained to focus again. She noticed lettering engraved at the bottom of the mural.

  The caption under the Picasso said—“Everything you can imagine is real.”

  Afterword

  This novel was conceived of in December 2009 and first published in January 2012.

  The story assumes that Barack Obama wins the U.S. presidential election in November 2012 and that a fictitious Republican Party candidate wins the U.S. presidential election in November 2016. These assumptions do not have any bearing on the story. However, there are brief references to these assumptions by the story’s characters as though they are factual. A person reading the story after November 7, 2012 may find these references to be untrue. Another possible interpretation of the plot is that it is not futuristic, but instead focuses on issues and events more relevant to a 2012 election. Letting readers draw timeless parallels with the real world is indeed this author’s intention.

  I hope you enjoyed the story. You probably found it thought provoking. Perhaps you will never see politics in the same light again. This novel does its bit to reclaim clarity from a sea of deception. If you would like to add your contribution to the cause, feel free to add a complimentary customer review on Amazon, and recommend the book to your family and friends. Go to the Facebook page of The Frankenstein Candidate and give your forthrightness rating and review of a political candidate. Every little bit counts. Remember what we said at the very beginning—”If you don’t control your politicians, they will control you.”

  Think of the maxim that Olivia, Mardi, and Ralph discovered—”Courage is contagious.” I hope the contagion spreads, so that you too find the courage to call a spade a spade, and the fortitude to change your life.

  Vinay Kolhatkar

  October 30, 2011

  Acknowledgments

  Although it may seem like it sometimes, writers do not write in a vacuum, and most writers are delighted to receive constructive feedback. So I would like to acknowledge the constructive encouragement from my wife, Shubha, the insightful editing from Jon VanZile, an accomplished editor and a self-confessed political junkie, and the thorough proofread by Joseph Ducie, himself a writer of fantasy novels.

  I would also like to thank my friends Crystal Evans, Jack Brislee, Suzannah Hogan, Nigel Richards, Martin Jenkins, Anuradha Hegde, and Gordon Sue. They provided the much-needed nutrition for the writer’s soul, thirsty for sustenance due to the hours of loneliness, self-doubt, and writer’s block that plague those who live in the labyrinth of their minds, trying to create a parallel universe that resembles this world in body but not in spirit.