“Sunday 2/21/16.

2:11 a.m.

Ft. Pitt Blvd.

Escape

Arrest-No campus affiliation” – from this week’s Crime Report, page 2.

Kiko felt his heart pounding. His claws clacked against the sidewalk on Wood Street. He tried not to think the word, afraid he would jinx it, that something would go wrong, but he couldn’t help it: every heartbeat, every time his claw met pavement, he heard it. Free. Free. Free.

He didn’t hate the zoo, not exactly. But just being there, after so long, suffocated him. Crocodiles have a lifespan of about 70 years, and he was already 40. The other crocodiles mocked him, said he was having a midlife crisis, compared him to the men who came to the zoo with bad comb overs and expensive sunglasses. 

But the longing for freedom, for escape, had always been inside him. He remembered being a hatchling and learning about the world. About how small his world was. About how much was lost to him.

He had been mourning the life he wasn’t living — the wild life, since he was small. He was done mourning now. He needed to act before he was dead. If he died now, and his whole life began flashing before his eyes, it would be a continuous shot of different humans looking at him. The thought terrified him.

He couldn’t quite believe it had worked. The zookeepers, after 30-odd years of agreeableness from Kiko, had grown complacent. Their keys jangled in plain sight, day after day, and it wasn’t that hard to reach them under the guise of an affectionate nuzzle. After a couple days of attempts, he got the keys into his mouth and kept them there until the zoo was closed. 

All he had to do then was wait. It was late by the time all the other crocodiles were asleep, the stars barely pricking through the night sky. He used the key and scuttled his way out of the zoo. 

There was so much to see. Cars. Houses. Roads. Trees. Everything he had heard humans talk about, all snapping into place in his mind. Kiko had been out of the zoo for ten minutes, and he already felt more alive than he ever had in his life. He did wonder why some of the humans he encountered screamed and ran away, but he was used to people reacting strongly to him and taking pictures of him.

He was headed for Africa, he decided. He wasn’t quite sure where it was, but he thought he’d recognize it if he found it. He imagined encountering the Nile River (that’s where the zookeepers said he was from) and feeling a shift in his bones, settling into the bottom of the river like centuries of sediment had done. 

He could do anything. He could go anywhere. He was giddy, felt stupid with giddiness. He was never going back, he decided. He belonged in this world, where things were real and imperfect and unpredictable. 

He had made it downtown, where the buildings were taller than he had ever dared to imagine. He was heading for the water, dreaming of Africa, on the Fort Pitt Boulevard at 2:01 a.m. when he saw the flashing lights, heard the sirens.

His heart sank with the weight of what he understood. As he was wrangled and sedated, only one word pulsed in his mind and behind his eyes: escape. Escape. Escape.