The narrator tells us that he's here to find out what happened to his family's house, which burned down when he was a little boy. He's also here to tell us that his parents' house burned down as well, and that he remembers bits and pieces from that night. He doesn't remember what his parents looked like at the time, but he wants to be able to forget about it. The narrator says that if he and the narrator were still alive, he'd never have made the terrible choices he has made as a teenager.