But the medicine made me fat. Bloat weight. I gained back all that I’d lost. Pretty soon I couldn’t get into the clothes that had once been hanging on me. I got a huge gut, a pair of thighs like twin water heaters, and a fat ass that stuck out like a clown’s. I’d never thought that I could sink this low. I resorted to wearing sweatpants.

I started setting my alarm clock for late-afternoon appointments and even then I missed about half of them. I wondered how I would ever reassimilate myself into the mainstream of American life. I felt so low and so bad I didn’t want to talk to anybody. The landlord came by: people were complaining about a smell. I didn’t want him to see my mouse lab. The way things were going it would have been a federal bust—Dr. Mengele Nabbed At Last! I told the landlord I was taking care of a pair of hamsters for a friend, don’t worry, I’ll deal with the smell. He said, “Man, Anson, you gained weight.” Well, no shit, Sherlock!

I cleaned out the mouse cages, replacing the soiled sawdust with fresh cedar shavings. Then it occurred to me to put the mice on this antidepressant that was kicking my ass so bad. Whenever I tried to get off it, I got this full-body pulsar buzz, and everything began to vibrate until I took another pill. I calibrated doses and started medicating the mice. Within three hours all of them were out. Dead? I couldn’t tell. But it turned out no, they weren’t dead—they were in comas. I wondered if that’s what I looked like at night. One slept for two days and didn’t change positions: frozen in one posture. I put another on the punishment wheel, and it was oblivious to the shocks. Blue sparks were popping off its paws and it ignored them.