The Drysocket Visitor
As recounted in the notes of dental hygienist, Room 12B, Colchester NHS MaxFax Clinic
In late October 2016, a patient arrived with no record, no GP referral, and no apparent teeth — but pain radiating from an old molar void.
He gave no name. He carried an X-ray image rolled into a tube of waxed gauze. The receptionist noted the smell — burnt chalk and mint antiseptic. His mouth hung open. Not wide. Just enough.
The triage nurse asked what hurt. He pointed to the empty place beside his jaw.
“It sings,” he said. “Especially when I lie.”
In the examination room, he sat perfectly still. The dentist, a quiet man named Dr Singh, gently palpated the gumline. No inflammation. No swelling. But when his glove entered the socket, it kept going — past the bone, past what was physical.
Dr Singh withdrew a small object: a white marble with an inscription in braille and an NHS barcode printed in faint glyphic ink.
The hygienist documented everything. The man did not blink.
The visitor left before discharge. No one saw him go. The CCTV showed only a flicker — a pulse of static shaped like a mandible.
The socket sealed. The marble remained.
Later, the barcode returned zero records. The braille read: I am not healed. I am catalogued.
The NHS closed the case. The clinic was refurbished. The hygienist transferred. But Room 12B was never reassigned.
Moral:
Not every pain is physical, but every record is kept somewhere.
Even absence can carry identification.
Trust those who wince at routine procedures — they have passed through something deeper.