The narrator of Wilson’s story is a lonely, depressed college student who attempted suicide when he was younger and has stopped taking his meds. That doesn’t sound like the setup for a touching and memorable story, but this is one.

One night, while I pretended to be asleep, facing the cinderblock wall of my dorm, my roommate and two of his friends were talking about me. “Your roommate, dude,” one of the guys said, “looks exactly like fucking Mr. Bean.” His name was Wynn Banks, and he already looked like he was in his forties; he always wore pastel shorts, even in the winter. He had a maid clean his dorm room every week. “He looks like fucking Mr. Bean,” Wynn said again.

“I mean, kind of?” my roommate said.

“You hearing this, Bean?” Wynn asked, but I still pretended I was asleep. When he was certain that I wasn’t going to respond, he said, “I’d kill myself if I looked like that.”