I saw the the short distance of the course and noticed the mixed colors (predominantly brown) and noticed the variety of things I had to jump over. There were pitiful Goombas and the abundance of Koopas. Piranha plants slowing rising and descending the shiny green tubes. Eventually, although it took a while, I stopped staring into the distance. I began to walk a few steps and found myself in the trajectory of two Goombas.

I simply walked back and jumped perfectly so that the parabola of the jump would lead itself to the Goomba next to it. With so much ease I found myself in a sigh of relief.

There were seven blocks in total. Four question blocks and three just-blocks. After three steps I reached the first block. A coin. A few steps later a question block appeared. Coin. A few more. Coin. Desperate to find one more block I jumped on the previous one. Yes! I thought, Finally! OK...and soon enough that block was above me. Knowing that I was in the right position, I jumped.

I got a mushroom. I chased and inevitably caught it. I felt no difference, until I noticed my view wasn't factually blocked. I jumped on a green tube and descended, just like the plant, into the underground world.

I spotted something quite odd. Something that appealed to me: a turtle shell with spikes. It was crawling "slyly" above me and dropped. Directly on my head. No warning. Just dropped. The pain was unbelievable. I felt everything. Then I realized that I shrunk, enemies walking toward me and what I thought was inevitable death. (Actually it was a march more than a walk.) This was the biggest regret so far.

Knowing that just walking forward would kill me I stepped back. I noticed a question block and suddenly kept my interest on that. As my enemies were nearly satisfied with killing me, I watched the beautiful yellowness and the mixture of a thrill before me. I managed to jump over the three idiots and found myself under the question block. I jumped. That pause and millisecond after the jump fills you with fear and that pause is slower than anything, like you freeze time and the world is only focused on you as that one jump hits the block. I didn't know what else to do for the remainder of nothing but slowness. I felt it! My finger touched the block before the rest of my hand finally hit it. The coldness of the block, the frightfulness, the thrill and the amazing surprise of the power up is the best thing.

It was a fire flower. With that I ran and ran blasting enemies with the heat and pain, which eventually led up to the exit pipe and left the darkness of the underground world. I saw that I was literally right by the flag. Except, there were stairs leading up to my victory. With nothing but my first attempt I passed the level.

A few worlds later led up to the encounter of Bowser. A massive dragon like turtle with spikes on his tail and his green shell. He was terrifying and three feet two inches taller than me. His entrance created a rumble! He was the first to make his move spitting out fire like the Fire Flower that I had multiple times. I saw an ax and chain. I knew what I needed to do. He spat a lot more and I dodged my many moments of death. Suddenly I noticed a platform. Jumping onto the platform was a lot harder than I thought due to the many interruptions of the massive beast but I managed. Finally I jumped over him and landed right where the ax was. With the ax in my grasp I would swung heavily at the chain and sadly end the beast's life. His skeleton was grotesque as was the lava filling his eyes. Everything was all over and the princess gave me a kiss on my chubby cheek. We had a festival to celebrate the arrival of Princess Peach.

Many years later I appeared reincarnated three-dimension-ally. I could feel the actual roundness of my belly. And my hair and hat and the odd shape of my oval ear. I got used to it. I learned how to wall jump. I learned many things. Then, the biggest challenge of all, fighting Bowser physically. He was kind of the main reason why I decided to go on an adventure. Most of the battles were difficult. In order to take this dragon-like-turtle I needed to grab his tail. After I grabbed his tail I would need to throw him. Unlike the other encounters, this guy could jump off of lava. Lava used to be his weakness. I would need to throw him into these spherical bombs with spikes poking out like thorns on a rose which just so happened to conveniently float in mid-air. It would take a while because I would be rotating him at one-thousand eighty degrees at four-teen miles per hour. I would, and completely out of luck, would finally throw the giant into it.

For many years I would, from what I thought were staged kidnaps, would save Princess Peach. Toad was considered a parasite, which I found unbelievably rude. I was called mentally ill and I was put in places that didn't make any sense. As well as having 10-100 of me just in case I died.

To: Aaliyah

The best person in the world.