Set mostly in New York City, Anesthesia follows a variety of characters, each with their own stories, all of them tying into each other in some form or fashion. The main character that seems to tie most of them together is Walter Zarrow, a philosophy professor at Columbia University on the verge of retirement who ends up viciously attacked while walking the streets on a Friday night. From there, we scale back the narrative to things that happen to a variety of people who are involved in the event, from Zarrow's family, to one of his students, to the man who comes to his aid, to the other man who is slumped near him at the time of the attack.