Recently, I pulled out an antique piece of penmanship. Honestly, I can not tell you how old the writing was. Your guess is as good as mine! It was one of the first pieces of practice I ever drafted.

I remembered on several other instances, when I extracted it from off the junk heap where I maintained the scrap, I quickly returned it to where I thought would be its eternal resting place.

Entitled "Drako" this exercise in futility, and placing words on paper, was simply not my cup of tea. A cliche, I know. But, how else can you adaquately express that contemplation? I mean, I am not, nor have I ever been, into ninjas, shoguns, or the comparable. Why I fashioned this inscription, I can not say for sure? Beats me!

After I established this piece, I knew I would never do anything with it, except conceivably File Thirteen the prose into the nearest trash receptacle. Where it should have been processed a long time ago. For some unspecified reason, I never did.

Upon a whim, and after I developed a wild hair, a little birdie whispered in my ear telling me, "You might as well achieve something constructive out of the miniscule effort you placed into producing this project."

I decided a tiny little contest here on FanStory was relevant. Therefore, I created one I called "Begin This Story." I further decided that for this contest, I would allow any type of genre, except for poetry, as long as the story began with the two sentences "Blackness, sinister and foreboding, saturated the icy cold dawn. The roaring wind cascaded deep into the isolated valley."

Since my contest ended, and I will return to those results momentarily, I have noticed the FanStory Contest Committee has created another contest they call "The Enjoyment of Eating!" In their contest they are allowing the same thing, with the minor exception of accepting poetry as a genre for their contest as well.

I have been a member of FanStory for marginally more than two years. Since joining this site, I have never scrutinized the Contest Committee permitting that to occur. Additionally, I wasn't totally sure they would allow my contest to stand as I created it with the stipulation included.

I surmise I should say, "Glad to be of service to you Contest Committee. My pleasure!"

I shall return back to the results of my contest now. To my utter amusement, six fellow FanStorians entered my contest. Even more surprising to me, "Drako" finished in third place. I had to chuckle because I am not sure I would have placed the importation in that lofty a position myself.

To those of you who voted for "Drako," I say a reverberating, "Thank you very much!"

I was pleased to witness six of the seven entries terminated in the Top Three. One entry won the contest. Two entries settled into second place. Three others, including "Drako," were voted into a tie for third place. So, I suppose something positive resulted from my writing "Drako" after all.

That just goes to show, you never know what might become of a piece of literature. What you consider garbage may, in reality, speak to another person. A text will only display its true value when somebody else reads it.

On a more pleasurable note, I believe I will escort my boy Danny to a Dog Expo he has been beseeching me for two weeks to attend. To a bow-wow-loving, ten-year-old youngster like him, who aspires to be a veterinarian when he is grown up, that is big stuff. I can perceive this yearning in the gentle manner in which Danny always interacts with animals.

Perhaps, I may transcribe a small expose on that adventure to inform you on how it turns out? I never know when the spirit, or my not always quite-so-friendly muse, may move me. As exemplified by "Drako," and considering some of the insane notions I come up to write about from time to time, you would think I had a balloon farm on Mars...inspired by the proper prompting, my communications can be immeasurably way out in deep space!

All I can say is, "Write on!"