"Squirtle," said the Sobble.
"That is not the sound a Sobble makes," I said to the Sobble.
The Sobble turned its gaze to me with disdain. "It is not up to you to tell a Sobble what sounds it makes," it said. "It is up to the Sobble."
"I know that," I lied. I didn't know that. I was naïve, thinking that I deserved to control nature. An invisible flaw had been laid bare, cutting a path of molten gold across my psyche.
"Oh, brother," the Sobble made a tsk-ing sound. "There's no need for incessant use of metaphor."
Had I said that aloud? I hadn't.
"I don't feel like this conversation is believable," I cried, raising my hands to hide my burning cheeks. "I think this is bad writing. You should have asked me why, if I knew that you could choose to make whatever sounds you wanted, I decided to demand that you make an appropriate noise for Sobbles."
"Well, your mind is not up to me to change," said the Sobble. "I could've asked, yeah, but telling you what you should do would be just as egotistical. I mind my own damn business." And then it hopped away.
I don't really remember what I did after that nor do I really remember what I did before that. I'm gonna say that I probably went home or wherever I was going, and I probably wanted to remember this conversation and make some real changes to my personality, but then I didn't. And then I forgot that this conversation ever happened until now. And then I remembered it for a little bit, and then I forgot it again. And it'll keep going like this until I die probably. It's like those shoes with the feet in them that wash up on that shore in British Columbia. Like I'll find the shoe and I'll look in the shoe and I'll see the foot, and for a moment I'll be part of something very sinister that's hidden from me, and then I'll just throw the foot and the shoe away. It will keep happening and nothing will change.