⏱ ~4 min reading
On Saturday morning, Artem spread out a sheet of paper, paints, and a jar of water on the kitchen table. A warm spring rain was falling outside the window, and each drop rang out a soft song on the windowsill.
Artem decided to paint the sea. A real one, with a sailboat and seagulls. He wet his brush for a long time, chose blue paint, added a little green to it - so that it turned out the color of the sea, and not just a blue spot.
At first everything went well. Wave after wave, the sky smoothly turned from blue to pink. But when Artem tried to draw a sailboat, something went wrong. One side turned out to be larger than the other. The sail turned out crooked. And the seagull above the mast looked more like a blot than a bird.
"Well," Artem sighed and put down his brush. "It doesn't work.".
He pushed the sheet of paper to the edge of the table and went into the room to play with the construction set.
Mom came into the kitchen to pour some tea. She saw the drawing, bent over it, and looked at it for a long time.
“Artem,” she called softly, “come here.”.
The boy came running, holding a yellow part from the designer.
"What, Mom?"
— Tell me what you drew here.
Artem frowned.
— The sea. But I threw it. The sail came out crooked.
Mom sat him down on a chair next to her. She smelled of chamomile tea and a little of the apple pie she had baked that morning.
"You know," she said, "it seems to me that this ship is just the right one. It's sailing through the storm. Do you see how the waves bend? The sail is bent by the wind. That's why it's uneven.".
Artem looked at his drawing differently. Suddenly, the crooked mast really looked like a mast in the wind.
— And the seagull?
"And the seagull flies very fast, its wings are blurred. You just add an eye and a beak to it - and it will fly.".
Artem bit his lip. He wanted to believe his mother and not believe her. He took the brush carefully, as if she might bite him. He added a small eye to the seagull. A thin beak. Then he drew another one next to it, smaller.
Then he thought - and added white crests on the waves. Then the sun above. Then the rays of the sun, falling on the water in golden paths.
When Artem finally put down his brush, something warm filled his chest. Not the joy that comes from candy or a cartoon. Different. Calm.
— Mom!
Mom came in, wiping her hands with a towel.
— Oh, Artemchyk. But this is a picture!
She was silent for a long time, looking. Then she took the drawing with both hands—carefully, as if it were something fragile—and carried it into the living room.
"It belongs here. On the wall. Above the sofa.".
Artem followed. He watched as his mother pinned his sea to the wall. The picture hung a little crookedly — like that sail.
In the evening, my dad came home from work, saw me, and stopped.
— Where does this seascape come from?
Artem's smile spread.
— It's me.
Dad whistled. He came closer. He looked at it for a long time — like a real painting in a museum.
"Young man. I thought you'd give up halfway through, as usual.".
Artem wanted to say "I quit." But he restrained himself. Because he didn't quit. He got to the end.
That night he couldn't sleep for a long time. He lay there, staring at the ceiling, and thinking: how many unfinished paintings did he have before? How many stories he started and abandoned because they didn't seem to work?
Or maybe they could all come out. If he had finished drawing.
The next morning, Artem took an old box out of the closet. There were his old drawings—started and abandoned. A half-lion. A castle without a roof. A spaceship without a tail.
He took the brush.
And he gave each of them what they lacked.
💡 A completed task has a completely different taste than one abandoned halfway.