A few days later, Howard intercepted an angry message on his answering machine from Barbie telling him that she was through with him and not to call her in the future; she had found another lover. He heaved a sigh of relief that Anita hadn’t heard the message from his mistress before he had a chance to erase the evidence. He moped around the house for hours after listening to Barbie’s message; her decision to drop him as a boyfriend had hurt his pride. When Anita came home, he was still sulking speechlessly over the permanent loss of his girlfriend. When he said he’d like to go for a drive or call one of his old friends to calm his nerves, Anita reiterated that it would be best if he didn’t drive his car or call their friends. She told him that no one would ever believe that he was forty-four years old and that they must keep his condition secret from everyone. Anita went on to say that with her doctorate in biochemistry and pharmacology, she could state categorically that there was no known treatment for his condition. Since he couldn’t be cured by medical science, they could only do nothing and hope for the best. She reminded him of and how hard his previous company found it was to keep his two prior poisonings out of the news. Anita offered to help him document his condition by taking his measurements three times a day along with his weight and vital signs. She told him that there was a chance that if she gathered enough data, she’d understand what was happening to him and might find something she could do for him.
Unfortunately for Howard’s ego, the process of rejuvenation continued unabated. Howard became smaller with each passing day. His hair grew shaggy and his fingernails appeared to grow as his body shrunk in proportion to his unchanging nails. Howard was forced to ask Anita to trim his hair every evening just to keep the hair out of his eyes. He took care of his nails himself while he sat on the toilet for hours each day to relieve himself. Anita kept a clipboard hanging on a hook in the bathroom where she charted his size, weight and temperature every evening. His temperature remained slightly elevated throughout the process of rejuvenation. It was never high enough to cause alarm, but it never dropped below one hundred degrees Fahrenheit either. On Friday morning he woke up and stumbled sleepily to the bathroom to urinate. He still woke every morning with an overfilled bladder and had started leaking a little urine into his underwear during the short trip to the bathroom each time he had to go. The changes in his physique made him feel like death warmed-over. Every joint and muscle screamed in protest as he squatted on the toilet and evacuated his bladder and bowels. He noticed that his diarrhea seemed to be getting better, but he was producing more stools than his diet could reasonably account for. He decided that he must be voiding the products of meals that he had eaten earlier in the week. It wasn’t within the realm of rational possibilities that he could have produced that much waste from the light dinner he had had the night before.