A woman stands alone at the edge of a lake, looking up at the full moon through the bare tree limbs. Her strawberry blonde hair, slightly matted and sticky, whips around her delicate face in the harsh wind.  The sanctuary of the open lake on the uncharacteristically warm September night invites the women to take a plunge.  She strips down to her underwear, and dives right into the deep.

Once upon a time, in a kitchen just down the street, an epic battle was waged. A once proud race of noodles had been divided into two: the Elbowians and the Shell-Soldiers.

I was born at sea. My mother had recited the story dozens of times, never losing her air of drama. “The spray of the sea showered you before they even cut your cord. The first air you breathed, strong with salt and tar.” She used to call me her ocean child. Even the name she and my father had given, Kai, meant ocean. She always believed everything happened for a reason.