I remember the day I arrived at his apartment. Small. Cramped. Cozy. Not enough room for two humans, yet he lived here with Tiffany. At least for a while, until they broke up. Thomas had been inconsolable for months after that. But he kept his focus on work. By day, he would leave the house, to his office job, as he called it. At night, he’d click away on a device he sometimes called laptop, others, computer. I never really understood any of these things, these humanmade machinery or tools. Very strange indeed.

What he was working on was also a subject I didn’t quite understand. “I’m working on an app,” he’d explained. “Not easy when you don’t have lots of time on your hand, but I’ll manage. There are so many things I need to learn. Coding, modeling, drawing… All sorts of things.”

He would often watch videos on his phone while clacking away on his laptop. A human voice would speak, giving him instructions, where he would stop the voice and do as instructed, before continuing to watch it. I thought it was a form of communication, but, after hearing him explain it to me a number of times – Thomas often repeated himself, especially after Tiffany left him – I don’t think he ever interacts with them. Rather, those humans tell him what to do without him being able to ask questions.

Why he enjoys that, I never understood. I would have much rather be with a live frog than one who only talks from a stone, for example. Humans are truly peculiar creatures.

“Don’t worry, Carmine,” Thomas would say once in a while, especially when he was tired, late at night. “I’ll make it.”

That was his way of saying he could live in a bigger house. Humans needed something called money to hop into a new home, unlike frogs, who simply wander wherever they want. But Thomas had not much of that money. He had to spend a lot of it on this home and on paying back money for his college. He tried to explain it to me, but each time, my mind would wander away, thinking of other things, such as a real pond. Or Ghrruk.

Ah, Ghrruk. How I miss her. Being alone here for years inside this small place he calls aquarium. I have a little pool of water, some walking space, and six windows all around me. Trapped, like the poor frog I am, fed twice or trice a day, sitting, sleeping, waiting. When he’s not around. I try to walk. But there’s not much to walk on. I get bored walking around this place, and I don’t have the energy I once had to attempt to escape by jumping to the top. I am tired and old. If only I had a companion.

I often think about the past. About Ghrruk, and Rhuggug, and Figgug, and all the others. I reminisce about the day we had escaped from our walled garden, which I long for every waking moment of every single day. Ghrruk and I thought it was small. Ha! If she could see the tiny cage I am being kept in with light constantly shining from above... The only way to escape it, to have a semblance of darkness, is inside a hollow piece of wood, which I’m currently lying in, watching Thomas work.

What would Ghrruk think of me if she saw me? I am mostly immobile, and my body has become enormous; all there is to life is food. It’s the only thing that helps me through the boredom of this glass cage. Sometimes I wish my enclosure was closer to the outside window, so I could watch the cars and humans, the birds and the clouds. But after his breakup, Thomas had put everything in a new place in his home.

“So I can get over her quicker,” he had explained with a longwinded sigh. “Everything reminds me of her. Even you, sometimes. But you’re my one and only, Carmine. You’re my precious friend.”

Yes, now that I think of it, it was around that time that I lost all hope of ever leaving this place. Eating and sleeping. The two main activities of my monotonous days.

Ah, Ghrruk. Ghrruk... My beloved sister. Is she even still alive? Has she found a pond to thrive with our brethren? Or is she already dead, eaten by a predator? I’d like to believe she is still alive and well, swimming every day in a large pool of water, surrounded by her children, and grandchildren, and great-grandchildren… I’m certain that she is in much better shape than I am, relishing delicious, fresh insects, and not those disgusting red worms.

Ah, the red worms. I have had enough of them. Sometimes I don’t touch them immediately, waiting until true boredom creeps in. That’s when I slurp them up, slowly, taking my time, hoping I would quickly become sleepy and nod off.

Sleep. My favorite time of the day. Sleep, at least, produces dreams, dreams of better times, of when I was once full of energy, hopping around, escaping Mrs. Whibbles, building my hideouts and planning our escape.

Constantly thinking about the past makes me feel a little better for a while, until I realize I cannot return to that magnificent place. Until I realize that I am trapped here forever, my mind replaying the good times I have had, and hoping that something could take me away from this dull life.

“No, that’s not it,” I heard Thomas say out loud. Tiffany hated how he would constantly speak to himself.

Thomas hasn’t always been like that. His change in behavior came gradually. At first, he was like me, energetic, full of life, full of future prospects. Then, his first business venture, as he called it, didn’t work out. It drained all his money and he had a huge fight with Tiffany. The second time it happened, though, it was all over.

She had waited for him to leave for work. Normally, she would have gone as well, but she said she wasn’t feeling well. Then, as soon as Thomas left, she hurried to the window and stayed there for some time. After that, she began to pick up her possessions, shoving them into a big, sliding bag, and wrote a letter, which she left on Thomas’s desk on top of his laptop. She was about to leave when she noticed me.

I was staring at her, lazily, as I did, from my window spot. Tiffany hesitated for a moment, as if she was about to take me out of my aquarium for some reason, but thought better of it.

“I’m sorry I have to leave, Carmine,” she said. There were no tears, yet I could tell she was sad. I had become quite good at reading human emotions. She pressed her hand against my glass enclosure. “I feel sorry for you, too. You don’t deserve to stay here with him, all alone. Animals like you shouldn’t be kept in confined places like this, but it’s not up to me to free you. I have fond memories with you.” I came closer, and so did her dark face. “I think you’re a beautiful creature, Carmine, even though I hate to touch frogs.” She let out a long and deep sigh, after which her face turned into a slightly more joyful expression, as if that sigh had drained poison out of her body. “I wrote that in my letter, over there.” She pointed at the laptop. “Hopefully, Thomas will take you to a better place instead of keeping you here like the egoist he is. Take care, little frog. May you find your freedom, one way…”

Her words trailed and she left the home. I wasn’t sure I understood what she meant by that. What was certain, though, was that she really liked me and was sad to leave me alone. I would’ve never thought that, once we lived together, she would speak so often to me. Not as much as Thomas, but every now and again, she’d talk to me. Especially when Thomas wasn’t around. “My free therapy,” she nicknamed me. She’d talk on, and on, and on. And I’d be there, staring at her big face – which was thinner than Thomas’s, but still big as she was a human – and trying to understand what this was all about.

Understanding humans is one of the things that I’ve always struggled with. They are complicated creatures, unlike frogs. We are more honest and simpler. Doing things as we should, saying things as we should. Well, Ghrruk might not have always been honest, but that was Ghrruk; she’s always been a little peculiar from the start, always seeing Thomas as a savior. And she was right: he was a savior, sometimes to our own detriment, just like me, now, being “saved” by him and brought here instead of in the nature where I belong.

Watching him work late at night makes me feel sad for him. Though I don’t quite understand all human problems, I understand having dreams, having a purpose, a motivation, a drive to keep going, even if it’s not always possible to understand why our instinct screams to do one thing or the other. Thomas is working for money, for a house like the one he lived in, for a pond where he can leave me thriving with other frogs.

Yes, Thomas is working hard, day and night.

“Don’t worry, Carmine,” he always said. “It didn’t work this time, but next time I’ll make it work. I’ll find something better.”

That’s what he told me the first time he failed. Then the second time came, when Tiffany left him.

“Ah, I failed again,” he had muttered. “Tiffany has left me. I’m all alone with you. All alone in this cramped and overpriced apartment. I wish I could leave this place, go somewhere far away in the country. Not where my father is,” he snorted. “There’s no way I’ll ever meet him, ever again. That’s the only right call I’ve made: cutting all ties with him. Who knows? He might be dead. I don’t care.”

But I knew he did care. Sometimes he would bring up pictures and videos on his laptop of his old home, of his garden, of the frogs. Also of his father and another human who he said was his mother. And then, he would cry for the longest of times, sometimes even falling asleep in front of his desk and staying there until the following morning. He told me he came late to work several times because of that.

That was one of Thomas’s flaws, I believe. He wasn’t being honest like frogs. Always saying, “It’s going to be all right, Carmine. I know it will. It’s my destiny, I can feel it.”

He said all that, yet he knew it wasn’t true. That’s probably why Tiffany decided to leave this place for a new home.

And now. Now I can hear the rain batter against the window. I wish I could look outside and see those waterdrops sliding down again. It’s a mesmerizing sight. One that Thomas shares with me, because he too, loves the rain, especially at night. He says he falls more easily asleep when rain falls, and so do I. Sometimes I think that we’re not that different, humans and frogs.

Small bubbles leave my nostrils. I feel tired. Cold, actually. Strange. The cold period hasn’t started yet. I know because Thomas told me about the falling tree leaves, meaning the warm period has just ended. Besides, this apartment is always around the same temperature.

“It’s a little expensive, but I want you to feel comfortable,” he always said. But I didn’t really like it. I needed that temperature fluctuation, yet he didn’t seem to understand my actual needs.

The battering rain on the window becomes so strong that Thomas raises his head and gazes outside before immediately returning to his work.

Yes, I’m tired. My body refuses to move and my eyes are about to close. I feel like it’s time to hibernate, even though I haven’t hibernated in years. But I know this feeling very well, being extremely tired, unwilling to do anything, not even eat.

I’m actually happy I’m going to hibernate. It will make time pass quicker. And who knows? Maybe Thomas will finally have enough money to buy the house of his dreams. Maybe he will look for Ghrruk. Maybe we will meet again.

If I could laugh, I would. I’m being as dishonest as Thomas now. Yes, I know what awaits me. Yet I cannot wonder, what will tomorrow bring me? Perhaps another glimpse of real freedom.