Matthew’s moon face sank back on the pillow as he raised an arm and clawed at the air helplessly. “Oh, God! Stop with that coughing, will you, please? Use your inhaler or something.” His anger quickly dissolved into a vapid puddle of self-pity and he spoke in a gasping whisper, “Just quit torturing me. I’ve got endogenous depression. If I don’t sleep, I’ll be dead by Friday.”

Matthew’s room was cold, and Mrs. Billis huddled in her red terry-cloth robe, drawing it closed tightly against her neck. “Everybody’s got depression,” she said. “It’s part and parcel of the human condition.”

These words aroused Matthew’s general sense of contempt for the world. He said, “No, they don’t. Not like mine. People get a mild case of the blues and brag about taking Prozac or St. John’s wort, but they’re lightweights. They go to work, they do things. My case is worse than anything to precede it in the annals of recorded medicine.” Prematurely awake, and racked with exhaustion from head to heel, Matthew let his arm flop along the side of the Slumber King, producing a visible little puff of dust before the raybeam coming from his television. Matthew’s speech had given his vocal cords too much of a workout and now his throat was raw. If he was in for another bout of strep, he decided he would just kill himself now and be done with it. He was utterly without codeine and couldn’t face a sore throat without narcotics. A strep sore throat was akin to having your tonsils out by the Inquisition’s ace torturing squad—red-hot irons and pincers and a holy relish for their gruesome duties.

Mrs. Billis said, “You talk depression, but it’s just a game with you. People who are really depressed kill themselves. Suicide has never even crossed your mind; all you want is the life of Riley!”

Matthew rolled his head in his pillow and said, “I’m too depressed to kill myself. Jesus! Everybody knows that you can get too low to commit the deed! When I get better, I’m going to for sure,” he said. “Mark my words! I’m getting off Zoloft and getting back on Nardil just to that end. I have to go two weeks cold turkey because you can’t mix conventional antidepressants with MOA inhibitors. When I make some therapeutic progress, then I’ll really be dangerous. In the meantime, if you have the least shred of feeling or compassion, leave me alone to lie here and wallow in my misery and self-loathing…please, oh God, make her go. If I’m getting strep again, just shoot me. Fuck!”