This was here. My entire life. Not a lake, not a puddle. An ocean. I always go here, with my pen and sketchbook. I sketch the setting around me and add the most details I could. Even if my parents called me to come eat, I would go in the house, grab my food, and go back out to the ocean and keep sketching. I was still holding my sketchbook. Even if the waves soak me, I would keep drawing, and I wouldn’t go back to change. And even if my parents saw me get soaked and call me in to get changed, I would always respond “I’m staying right here.“ and then I keep on sketching. “Oh no you don’t young lady. Get in here right now!” “Nope.” Kept on sketching. “Come on.” Kept sketching. Then my mom finally gives up and says “Well young lady, you’ve won this time.” I smile to myself and look and the sunset one last time to finish the sunset in my sketch. I look at the waves. I sit down closer to the water as for the first time I realized there was fish in the ocean. “Hi, fishes,” I say. “You know, I’ve never drawn a fish before. How bout I make the waves hollow for a bit so I can add you in?” The fish swim up and down, as if they were saying yes. “Alright then, here.” I sketch the waves out and show it to the fish. They make some bubbles and swim, again, up and down. “I’ll take that as a yes.” I keep looking at my sketch and looking at the fish. Up..down…up…down..up again. “Phew, I’ve finally finished sketching you guys. Now to shade the waves in so it looks more realistic.” I sketch while I say things to the fish. “You know, it’s kinda hard to draw a fish, cus when I was younger, I tried and it didn’t work out. I’m not sure why I said I never drawn a fish before. But there’s one thing I wanna say and I hope it’s not offensive. Your kinda easy to draw.” The fish go in a circle. “I don’-t know-wha-t that means,” I say confused while laughing at the same time at the fishes action. The fish blew up bubbles as if they were laughing to. “Hey! Why don’t I give you names?” The fish start moving around clockwise and then go up and down again. “Okay. I say you were saying yes. Okay, there’s five of you..” I drift off as I think of names for them. There was a pufferfish, so I decided to name that one puffy. That blue ones Diamond.. I say this all to the fish as I go. “Hey, you. The green one. I’ll name you leaf. And you..yeah, you. The red one, why don’t I name you-“ Diamond and the red fish go up and down and act as if they were hugging each other. “Oh, I think your saying you guys are siblings? Well, then I have the perfect name for the red fish. Ruby!” One more to go. And you are.. “can I see what color that fish is?” I point at one. They jump out of the water. “Okay, I will note that down… perfect name! Since your white, why don’t I give you the name.. Cloud!” The white fish, Cloud, jumps as saying yes. I laugh. The fish make bubbles and make it sound like they’re laughing too. I laugh even harder. “Your the best fish in the entire world that I could ever meet,” I say to the fish. “Your amazing.” I remember my sketch. “Oh wait, I need to finish my sketch. What do you guys think I should do next?” The fish all jump toward the sun. “Oh, I need to finish the sun!” I add the shade in and make lighter with a little gradient around it to make it glow. “Perfect. What do you guys think?” The fish wave their tiny little fins as if they were trying to clap. “Thanks. You guys are the best.” I remember that the paper was water-proof, so I went into the house, copied it, and then gave the paper from the sketchbook to the fish. “I copied it with more water-proof paper. This one’s yours now.” I smile and the fish, and I swear, it looked like they did too.

“Best fish.”