You’ve been trying to find the right words to say I love you to your friend when he up and turns into a crocodile. Which, sure, is kinda weird, but he seems happy. Sometimes you look at his toothy face and you think to yourself, gosh I wish I were a crocodile, too. But capitalism and lack of universal basic income and bullshit and yadayada which all means one of you has to make rent, and seeing as he’s spending most of his time in the bathtub and lacks opposable thumbs, it’s on you to go to work, sit in your cubicle, type at your desk, and watch the numbers on your computer go up and down. When you get home, you watch reruns of Bones together, and sure, the linoleum of the bathroom is not the most comfortable, but you bring in a blanket and he’s polite in not moving too much so there’s minimal spillage and you stay mostly dry. Somedays when you wake up you feel sick to your stomach thinking of him in your bathtub, because you think that he deserves so much more: some mangrove swamp, with dark, murky water, some big blue skies and a whole community of other crocodiles, meaning a whole world larger than you and more than just D.C. tap water. You still think this as you’re typing on your keyboard and your boss pings you about a deadline and you take a call and share your screen and eat lunch and wonder how the bathtub is and miss him and then you get home and see your friend had already dragged your blanket into the bathroom and even dragged a pillow near the toilet, too, to suggest that it could bring you added comfort. You think the pillow suggestion is really smart because you can wedge yourself between the edge of the bathtub and toilet now. You settle down next to him. You press play on the next episode. You realize you’ve been saying I love you to each other this whole time.