“Why do you always have to act like you’re ill?” Tim Dowling’s wife asked when he sat at the kitchen table on a Wednesday.
Dowling collapsed in on himself at the kitchen table, feeling dizzy, feverish, and achy for two days, the Guardian said. When his wife walked in and reacted to his groaning, sighing, and coughing, she suggested he performed.
“The cough is a symptom, not an affectation,” Dowling told her.
The illness let up for an hour or two in the afternoons before reasserting itself around dusk, the Guardian reported. Dowling displayed consistent discomfort across the day.
Casual observers could understand the condition in the round. They could avoid claiming the illness only manifested when it was time to take the bins out.
At lunchtime, the middle child came downstairs with a lingering, week-old cough. Dowling dubbed him “Patient Zero,” the Guardian said.
Dowling told his wife that her real wish was for him to mime being healthy. He felt terrible.
By Saturday morning, the illness passed to Dowling’s wife, the Guardian said. She spoke with a cracked and far-away voice and pulled the duvet over her head.
Dowling admitted it was an assured performance. Although Dowling still felt ill, his wife asked him to walk the dog because she could not move.
Half an hour later, Dowling stood in the park in the pouring rain with his hood up, head pounding, and eyelids heavy, the Guardian said. He watched the dog chase squirrels, coughing so hard his whole frame shook.
