The back of the human head

Alistair McCullough, a physics lecturer at the University of Z, had become obsessed with the back of his wife’s head. Though they’d been married for nearly thirty years and had grown up children, he’d never really noticed it before or been so overcome by hatred toward it. And when he arrived home that night, there it was again.

‘Your dinner’s just in the oven’ said his wife somewhat distractedly, when he came downstairs after having changed. She was sitting at the table with her back to him, absorbed in a bit of sewing, whilst he pottered about the kitchen, and set about getting his meal. And as he did so, there it was again! The back of his wife’s head, the coarse, overgrown hairline and the nape of the neck. How it maddened him! He was filled with disgust and loathing for it. As he traipsed about the kitchen, making himself a drink and picking out some cutlery, he couldn’t stop looking at it, he was obsessed. He just couldn’t help it. And as he ceased his activities, he simply gave in to looking at it, that stupid, unkempt hairline, that infuriating nape of the neck. And as his wife, engrossed in her sewing, and totally oblivious of him and his obsession, continued to sit there and show the back of her head – and suck a sucky sweet at the same time! – he just wanted to pick a spoon out from the drawer, and smack her across the back of the head with it.

‘Oh please, dear Lord in Heaven,’ he preyed, down on his knees that night in the bathroom,

‘Oh please Lord, forgive me for such evil thoughts against my wife, that gentle lamb, that dear, dear women, the mother of my children. Please Lord forgive me. Banish these thoughts from me, help me Lord to love and cherish that sweet wife of mine. Amen.’

And when he drove to work the next morning he felt a lot better.

‘That’s it, you need have no fear now’ he said to himself, ‘everything can be overcome with the power of prayer, with the mercy of the almighty. It’s simply a case of understanding things. If someone can understand that what they are doing is wrong, then they can stop doing it. It’s just a matter of being logical.’

But that night, it was there again.

‘No, all that preying last night was false and useless, and my thoughts this morning pure cod philosophy’ he thought to himself, now resigned to his obsession. And that night he somewhat gave himself up to it, to looking at the back of the head, though, accepting of it as he now was, he felt not so troubled that he would do something crazy like smack his wife over the head.

What a funny thing it was, the back of the human head. The unkempt, ragged, dog-like hair, the nape of the neck and the infuriating hairline. He studied it for a while. Yet later, as he sat down to his dinner that evening, his wife was cleaning dishes in the kitchen; and in order to stop looking at the back of her head, he sat with his back deliberately to her: ‘out of sight, out of mind’ he said to himself.

During dinner and after, he mused on his obsession. The back of the human head, if one looked at it, was just like the front, except there were no eyes, nose or mouth, but just an undistinguished surface covered in coarse hair. And if you looked at someone from this vantage point, it was just as if you were looking at a human being, but such a stupid and backward one, that they had no features and just hair all over their face. You felt as if you had such an advantage on someone, when they had their back to you, such an advantage as if you saw how stupid and gormless they were. And you wanted to hit them in order to show them how much you hated them, to show them the world was a nasty place. You could see how ridiculous they were, yet they had no idea of it. And you just wanted to shout ‘uh-uh!’ at them to indicate how stupid they were. Oh! To strike them over the back of the head unawares! They would have no idea! They had no idea! It truly was very deeply rooted in the human psyche. Primitive man must have felt this same loathing, this same urging to strike, thought McCullough, probably monkeys did as well.

‘No, this won’t do any longer’ he thought to himself as he lay awake that night, his wife next to him already asleep. He was resigned to his obsession, and so in a better state of mind to deal with it.

‘Perhaps I should get help; or at least tell my wife about it. I feel as if I’m hiding something from her.’

The next day McCullough had to sit in and assess the lecture of a colleague. He seated himself at the back of the theatre. And there in front of him! Rows and rows of backs of heads! Hundreds of them or so it seemed. He just gorged himself on the spectacle, watching all the stupid, stupid backs of heads, heedless of what the lecturer was saying; the awful ragged hairline of all these students, some straight, some curly (these were especially annoying), and many unkempt and overgrown. ‘Get a haircut!’ he wanted to shout as he sat at the back consumed with anger. He noted that the recently cut ones did at least look tidier. It was the unkempt ones that were really infuriating. As the lecture wore on he watched all the backs of heads; watched them as the students chatted and joked amongst themselves; as they looked up and followed what was written on the boards; as they looked around puzzled by what the lecturer had said and tried to work things out. All very natural things to do, yet how stupid these actions seemed when you viewed them only by looking at the backs of the student’s heads. What a horde of gormless monkeys. And especially annoying for McCullough, was one mature student who sat at the front, with a semi-bald patch, clearly struggling to follow, and who kept putting down his pen, asking silly questions and who was totally unable to comprehend what was going on; moving his head about and musing in such a way that his head moved from side to side slowly and robotically.

‘Damn that fool!’ thought McCullough, and he wanted to stand up wave his hands about like a monkey and start making monkey noises of disgust and irritation and go ‘uh-uh!’ with real anger at him.

‘Look how the idiot moves his head around, like a confused monkey. What a stupid bald patch! What stupid monkey movements of the head as the fool tries to understand. Uh-uh!’ he thought to himself in anger.

‘All these fools with overgrown, unkempt hairlines, totally oblivious of how much I loathe them, absorbed in their workings, showing me their stupid napes of the neck, they’re like so many sitting ducks to me! Ugh! How I could go around and kill them all.’

As he drove home he was so overcome with remorse for his evil thoughts, that he decided he must tell his wife.

‘I’m not a bad man’ he mused. ‘But all these despicable and nasty thoughts I’m having against good people, against my loving wife, well it’s just too much. And how guilty I feel toward my poor dear wife. That wonderful woman. How could I hate her so much and want to strike her across the back of her head? No, I’m going to come clean, tell her about it, apologise and seek her advice.’

But when he got home, Mrs McCullough was in a bad humour. Though she was indeed a good woman, and a pleasant one, she was often prone to these moods; moods of anger, depression and irritation.

‘I waited in all day for the damned catalogue order to arrive and it didn’t come. I spent the best part of an hour in a phone queue waiting to speak to a customer representative and in the end I’ve had a stupid and pointless argument and gotten myself into a right state. I’ve had no fresh air all day. What a complete waste! The bloody cat’s had a good go at the settee and that’s why she’s been thrown out and is sitting at the window, looking like the last puppy in the shop.’

As she said all of this she brought McCullough, who was seated at the table, his dinner. She banged the plate on the table in front of him and he was quite scared. Perhaps with his wife in this mood, he’d best not mention the back of the head thing; in fact with his wife like this he felt cured of his obsession: how could he despise and loathe her when she was this angry? He began to feel better.

‘I’ve had a right stinker of a day. I’ve spent half the morning hovering up mud from the floor. In future would you please take your shoes off at the door – at least now when it’s muddy outside. And another thing. If you are going to make porridge in the morning, then would you please use the green non-stick pan and not that ceramic one – I’ve had to soak it for hours, and have had to have two good goes at it to get it clean. And one more thing’ she said in a final outburst of anger ‘would you for God’s sake get a haircut! I’m sick to my back teeth of looking at that stupid, gormless back of your head! It’s been bugging me now for weeks. I’m sorry but I can’t keep it to myself anymore. You should get it cut, it looks ridiculous.’

So that was it! His wife had been going crazy over the back of his head. The professor just sat there, feeling in fact very relieved as though a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Yet he also felt embarrassed and foolish for his own self, as well as harbouring anger toward his wife for so despising him.

‘Huh! Yes I guess it makes perfect sense, now that I think about it. I’ve been so engrossed in thinking I was one up on everybody else, so caught up in hatred toward my wife, and so consumed by guilt for my thoughts, that I didn’t seem to realise that I was also being watched, was a sitting duck myself, have an annoying back of the head. Yes’ said McCullough slowly ‘it makes perfect sense.’

He went upstairs and with a pair of mirrors, examined the back of his head. ‘Yes indeed’ he thought ‘that’s absolutely contemptible. What a fool I look. What a fool I am.’

He felt himself vulnerable and foolish with such a stupid back of the head. He saw his own weakness. And knowing how much hatred he had had for the back of his wife’s head, he understood perfectly just how much hatred she had for his; and because of this he felt angry with his wife for so despising him.

But when these feelings died down, he was simply glad the whole ordeal was over; and glad that his wife had unwittingly stood up to him. He told his wife he would go to the barbers on Saturday, and she, in remorse for her nastiness, apologised to her husband, only trying to explain to him that it would look better when it was cut.