Tim Dowling, the Guardian columnist, finds himself once again at the mercy of a bizarre and inexplicable physical sensation. This time, he wakes with a peculiar head pain that defies easy description.
A New and Embarrassing Symptom
Attempting to explain the discomfort to his somewhat indifferent wife, Dowling likens it to cracking his skull on a low doorway or, more fancifully, the feeling of an invisible hand holding him up by the hair. The pain, he notes, migrates slowly across his scalp. His wife's pragmatic advice is to consult a GP, but Dowling is resistant. "I'm not telling a GP that ghosts are pulling my hair," he declares, judging it even more embarrassing than his past catalogue of odd ailments.
A History of Bizarre Health Quirks
This new 'ghost hair' sensation joins an ignoble list. He previously suffered from 'hot hand', a condition where his right hand made objects feel artificially hot to the touch, though it vanished before he had to describe it to a medical professional. Then there is 'phantom phone', a persistent illusion caused by a creaking hip joint that mimics the vibration of an incoming text message, which he has simply learned to endure.
Family sympathy remains in short supply. His son quickly diagnoses the issue via internet search as muscle tension leading to scalp pains, caused by a trapped nerve, stress, or poor posture, much to Dowling's chagrin.
Distraction and Escalation
As the scalp pain lessens slightly in the afternoon, Dowling's irritability shifts focus to a household scissor shortage, a crisis promptly resolved when he finds them all in the dishwasher. By bedtime, the issue has transformed into a familiar neck problem, offering a strange sense of reassurance.
The discomfort disrupts his sleep, leading to a telling dream where he visits a doctor in a crowded clinic but complains only of a sore throat, wasting the chance to seek dream-advice for his real ailment. His wife points out this was a missed opportunity for free consultation.
Seeking a more tangible solution than dream doctors or alarming AI diagnoses (which suggest anything from a fatal condition to a shampoo allergy), Dowling reluctantly ventures into the garden. At his wife's suggestion, he attacks the hedge with a trimmer, compulsively shaping every bush into a perfect sphere. The physical exertion, however, merely converts his neck problem into a full-blown lower back issue.
An hour later, he is found immobilised on the sofa, reflecting on simpler times when his only worry was a hand that made things feel inexplicably hot.
