When the passing of Haley’s comet arrived, I, at age 10, watched, unbelieving that the universe had taken to throwing snowballs just for fun. And apparently it was throwing them at me. Like most, I felt that this event was somehow significant and took to talking at length of the coming zombie apocalypse to my pets. They, as pets are often wont to do, said nothing, but thought dark thoughts of the fragile mind before them.

The educators who attempted to sway my path from the conquering of all forms of cartoon saw fit to place me in the care of a mighty thinker. Who, using her subtle arts, opened the inner recesses of my mind, and I emerged: a surly and sarcastic, brooding teenager, with a curious love of literature.

When nearing the end of my educational incarceration, I was showing still signs of inuring myself to their treatments, so the sages gathered and once again, I was sat, shivering and unknowing before the feet of another sage. His methods were unorthodox, and he taught me the raw love of prose. He asked my opinion of a story and hearing my negative review, said “Good!”.

Now, with the skills I have learned I am attacking the page with the passion of my Haley’s induced madness and the training of the masters from so long ago.