My Sea of Blue
I stare into the complete fullness of the blue ocean. The cold water has engulfed my entire body and the golden sand tickled my toes as I slowly floated down to the bottom of the ocean floor. Fish swarmed around me as a stingray slowly soared over the sand and under my feet right as I touched the bottom. Fish of all species flew by me through the pristine water. I looked to my right side to see a huge sea turtle slowly moving its huge body through the water and carefully hovering over the sand. Small bunches of sea weed swayed in the ocean current as little sea horses held on to the stems of the weeds, to keep from being swept away. It was perfect and nothing could ruin my perfect place in the ocean. Not even the giant shark that was going to hover right over the top of my head. The huge great white, with its protruding teeth swam right over the top of me and with a flick of its huge, sharp looking tail, a gust of ocean water hit me in the face. The coldness of the water still didn't affect me as I didn't feel the cold, I didn't feel wet. Then the ocean water and marine life started to pull away from me and my sight of the ocean began to change. I'm not engulfed in ocean? The beautiful setting of the ocean was now locked behind a wall of glass and the sounds of men, women, and children filled my ears, not the ocean currents and fish. What pulled me from the perfect ocean? I looked behind me to see the one who brought me here, the person you could say, my father, Arthur. I had to ask him to take me to the aquarium since I'm not old enough to go by myself. If I were just one year older, 12, I'd be able to go by myself, whenever I wanted and not on Arthur's time, but my time. He had put his hand on my shoulder and was waiting for me to snap out of my imagination. Once I turned around, he replied,
"Alfred, it's time to go. We've been here for 3 hours, aren't you ready to go?"
He made me angry, "It's not time to go! We just got here and I've only made it to one exhibit of the aquarium."
Now he was just surprised that I've only been at this exhibit for the entire time we've been here. "You've been here at this one exhibit, day dreaming for 3 hours and you didn't even make it through the rest of the aquarium? You promised you'd at least make it through half of the aquarium today and you're still stuck here. You always get stuck at this exhibit and none of the others that you pass on the way to this one. What is it about this ocean exhibit that you love so much?"
He made me feel horrible for breaking my promise and the only reply I could make was, "I'm sorry, I guess I'll have to try when we come back next time."
Arthur put his hand on my head and ruffled up my hair. "It's alright, we'll try and get through the aquarium eventually. Come on, let's get going."
I put my head down in disappointment in breaking his promise and we were leaving. Arthur grabbed on to my hand and we started to walk passed all the exhibits I never looked at because they never captured my attention. All I wanted to see was the biggest exhibit they had here and that was the 'Pacific Ocean Exhibit' and at the bottom of the screen of glass it had that little description of what was in the tank and why. 'Here we have our most famous exhibit, the Pacific Ocean. This tank is filled with tinny sea horses and the oldest sea turtle we have ever had here in the aquarium, 723 years old. Berry the shark also lives here in happiness after his left fin was cut off by shark trappers. He was found at the bottom of a beautiful coral reef nearing death. He's fine now here at the California Aquarium. Don't forget about the huge stingray that was also found in the nets of fishermen. One of the employees here was on the boat and saved this little stingray and now he also lives here along with the multiple number of species of fish found all over the Pacific. Hope you enjoy the view.' And of course I have the sign memorized.