First, I was floating, not in a vacuum, but in a sea of gelatin which I took to be love. My limbs. My mouth. My head. My universe. The sound. My ears. I knew. I existed, knowing, floating in a sea of love. Then came the great burst and the tearing and the wrenching. The spewing and the love all around me diminishing, disappearing, abandoning me. Light. My eyes. What's this? Coughing. Suffocating. Gasping for life. No longer knowing. Then I was wrapped tightly, but no longer surrounded by love. I had to breathe.

Then there was the voice. It lulled me into slumber, and filled my waking hours with love. It was almost like the gelatin, except that the voice often left me alone to kick and scream until I felt coolness spring from my eyes. My eyes! My nose! I wanted to go back. More coolness all over my face. My face! My lungs! I wanted to go back. Gasping. I wanted to go back. Choking. My face awash in coolness. I no longer knew. Choking. My eyes seeing specks of blue and then black. And then slumber. And the voice when I awoke.

On St. Valentine's Day, I married Mari Fuji. We stood facing each other in front of the class and exchanged the chocolate lollipops Miss Rosy gave us. Everybody in Miss Rosy's kindergarten class got married that Valentine's day, at least so far as I can remember. Then again, even in the innocent eyes of four- and five-year-olds there must have classmates too unattractive to be deserving of love.

On the last day, we marched single file and sang just as we had been practicing everyday, only this time we wore shiny, white robes and stupid, flat hats with a string hanging down. They wouldn't even stay on our heads. We had to use our mother's hairpins. If we had to wear a hat, why couldn't I wear my itchy hat, the one that covers my whole face except for holes for my eyes and mouth that I got that day when it was snowing. I always got hot when I played in that hat, but I wore it anyway because it made me look like Spiderman. "My spider senses are tingling!" I'd say to myself.

After, we got ice cream. Dad even came, but I sat next to Mom in the booth. Her voice, there was always her voice. That voice that reminded me and made me feel oh so happy. That voice that was all that I would ever have left in this world. My father said, "If you really want to get ready for being a first-grader, I'll teach you how to play hangman." He liked that green minty ice-cream with chocolate chips in it. My mother liked green tea ice-cream. I liked vanilla with colored sprinkles, a burst of yellows, reds, and browns, uniform in its diversity.