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::Something I started a while ago. I know it ends to abruptly and a lof details can be fleshed out, but this is just a rough start::

Have you ever found yourself standing outside the boardroom before the biggest meeting of the year, reviewing your notes for the umpteen-thousandth time, while thinking to yourself, "I'm really throwing myself to the lions this time,"? Do you know where this little idiom in this century's vernacular even came from? Perhaps you're familiar with Rome's favorite emperor, Nero. You know, the man who had the vendetta against all Christianity because of some unquenchable inferno that threatened to destroy his precious city? Once Christians were the popular target for persecution, it's rumored that one of Nero's most gruesome punishments was to take a whole slew of Christians, throw them into the Coliseum, then let out a few starved lions to have at their very own fillet-o'-martyr.

Whether or not this actually happened, most people today have no idea what it's like to be persecuted for something you do in the form of being thrown to large predatory animals. Whether or not saints ever did get torn limb from limb by the king of the jungle, I feel I could sympathize with any Matthew or Mark quite aptly.

You see, I'm a clown. Yes, a clown. What, did you think I sounded too cohesive for the likes of a squeaking, juggling, pie-hurling moron? Shows what you know. The fact is, I got my Ph.D. from Princeton. Just because that happened to be in Cryptozoology doesn't make it any less of a degree, thank you very much. Unfortunately, there aren't too many positions open for Bigfoot hunters these days. Most offices that look at my resume laugh me out instead of even offering the obligatory rejection call. I mean, I knew I was taking a long shot by actually studying something I was passionate about, but I didn't think I'd end up in a circus just to make ends meet. Talk about your turn of events. One day, you're hobnobbing around country clubs with your Princeton chums, telling everyone that your particular field is "Mumble-mumble-ology" (they always assumed a "radi" or "paleont" was buried in my "unfortunate mumbling habit"); the next, you're doing five loads of laundry a day by hand because you've got to get the whipped cream out of your pockets and you've just run out of quarters again.

I don't know why I'm griping, seeing as I'm the one responsible for the mess in which I now sit. After all, if I hadn't followed my gut on what to pursue in college, I never would have discovered the existence of dragons.

You'd think the experience would have been this great earth-shattering event, but it was really nothing out of the ordinary. One day, I'm walking around the vast expanses of the English countryside while following a lead I'd heard about vampire sheep, when BAM. I walk through about five minutes worth of spindly forest to discover a dragon in this big empty field. Surprisingly, it wasn't too far off the mark of what legends have been saying about them for centuries: massive bodies, glistening scales, wingspan wider than a small airplane. It was even gently puffing flames onto a flock of what I thought were the vampire sheep [turns out they were just normal sheep with abnormally long incisors].

From there, you'd think my career would have taken off, right? WRONG. You see, you've got to have the headline right in the papers. Which sounds more legit to you: "The Discovery of the Existence of Dragons Credited to Local Zoologist" or "Cryptid Case Cracked by Crazy Cribbing Cryptozoologist"? Exactly. The tabloids all wanted to run my story, what really happened--right next to the exposé about the vampire sheep. With that, my grant was revoked and that was the last one I was entitled to apply for from Princeton. Nowhere else would even take a second look at me.

After the collapse of my pseudo-career, I still needed to eat, so I decided to put my juggling skills, as well as a knack for taking a pie to the face, to use in the local circus. If a degree wasn't going to do me any good, why keep flaunting the diploma, am I right? My droopy depressed countenance told them I was interested in a job before I even opened my mouth.

"One stip-a-lation, Mista," the man who appeared to be the head clown chuffed, "If you got an allergy to da make-up an' you bust out in hives durin' da act, you gotta keep goin'. Don' start itchin' and gettin' hive juice everywhere or we gonna have problems."

This was my inception into meritorious world of entertainment.

Little did I know that this was the worst possible time I could have picked to break into the most heinous career field on the planet. Perhaps I didn't mention it, but around the same time, about 17 refugees from Cuba crossed the border into Florida on a chain of oil drums. For some reason or other, all of them were unwittingly carrying the Ebola virus. Before the government could even get a handle on the illegal immigration issues at hand, half the population of Southern Florida was either in the hospital or stone dead. Miraculously, the story was covered up so as to not spread panic throughout the entire nation. However, only six of these pandemic sacks were caught and put into quarantine.

Would you believe it if I took the story a step further and told you that these miserable lowlifes went in cognito as--you guessed it, clowns. CLOWNS, for crying out loud! So, now, under the guise of the Phobic Extermination/Roman Recreational Appreciation Act, the government is determined to wipe out the remaining Ebola-carrying clowns by feeding ALL clowns to dragons in circuses. They're claiming that they're doing a service to the country, as recent polls have indicated the nation's #1 irrational fear is of clowns. That, and they figure that the only way to get back to the golden age of the Roman Empire is by bringing back some of the more popular traditions. Hey, history's bound to repeat itself, right?

Now, if all of this was supposed to be hush-hush, then how do I know this, right? I'll tell you how. I'm sitting here on a hard wooden bench with my hands shackled to my feet, waiting for the Ring Master to call my number. I'm the next in line to be fed to America's First Dragon Coliseum Extravaganza.