Summary

“Sloth” follows Dr. Elijah Jones, who appears in several other stories in the collection. One of his patients is a young girl who is dying of a fatal illness. Elijah has begun to prepare the girl’s family members for the likelihood of her death. After a work shift, Elijah takes a walk around Minneapolis instead of going home. In recent days, he has begun to have hallucinations, possibly due to overwork and sleep deprivation. Elijah sits on a park bench to rest and think. The narration implies the possibility that he falls asleep on the bench, and that the following events are a dream. Elijah sees famous, deceased filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock suddenly standing next to him. Hitchcock says that he (Hitchcock) has not yet been allowed into heaven. Hitchcock speaks aloud, improvising a film plot. He then says that Benny, at...