The Dentist
Time snoozed: the minutes queued, stranded in the tedium of waiting for a door to open. They pushed into each other and merged so that there was no way to know how many there were or had ever been. Anna blinked upwards into the existential light which glared down upon her. It did not blink back.
She was lying with her head slightly lower than her feet and her mouth wide open as a high-pitched and unrelenting electric scream told her that the dentist was at work, drilling into the roots of that big molar which had cracked and broken as she had eaten a croissant one morning.
A fucking croissant! How absurd. It ought to have been toffee or peanut brittle or something tough. Instead, it had been a soft, flaky, buttery croissant. How could something so inconsequential have broken a whole tooth?
Be honest!
The unblinking electric light continued its unrelenting interrogation. It forced her to confess to herself that it had not been the croissant. That tooth had been decaying for years. More than one dentist had filled it and repaired it but, with every patch, its resilience had weakened. Then, one day, it had cracked and broken and tiny bits of tooth wall had shattered into her mouth. They had felt like miniature swords, slicing into the jelly of her cheek and piercing her tongue, making it swollen and sore. It had impeded her speech, making her swallow words which ought to have been said aloud. The croissant was not the cause.
The only way to save the tooth had been to destroy it and replace it with a new one. This dentist had been blunt about that: root canal treatment, followed by a crown.
So here she was. The ivory leather chair felt solidly secure underneath her back. Her ankles neatly crossed on the foot rest. She felt unconcerned: comfortable and relaxed. She was aware of the drill grinding away in her jaw but her nerves were numb. There was no sensation. The most painful part of the whole process had been anticipation: she had felt the sharp prick of the needle before it had begun inserting the anaesthesia into her nerve and she rather anticipated some discomfort to come as the numbness wore off. But, in this esoteric state of timeless suspension, Anna was, at last, at peace.
She gave an involuntary shudder which caused the dentist to momentarily cease his drilling and ask if she were OK. She was - but, for an instant, she had pictured herself playing the title role in the scene of her usual Wednesday afternoon. She saw the handcuffs and the chains. She saw the rack and the thumbscrews. Her head felt like it was about to explode with the pent up pressure caused by an eon of inhabiting an ill-fitting crown. Miscast in the story of her own life, she was tossed about, out of control and flailing, not knowing what she was doing. Her feet kicked wildly, unable to find solid ground.
It was a fleeting moment of panic. She looked up, into the solitary multi-lensed eye of the cyclops - and a blue wave of serenity washed over her.
They’d told her that all she had to do was ‘deliver’ the lesson - and they were only first years. It seemed an unlikely reason to cause her resilience to crumble. It wasn’t. That had been eroding for years - but it was a festering buboe. It leaked putrid black pus. It stank like a leprous ulcer. She feared it as you might fear waking to find yourself buried in your own grave: fighting to breathe as the weight of confinement stole the stale air from your lungs and necrosis anticipated decay. Each second had felt like a new moment of death. Time had snoozed: the minutes had queued, pushing into each other and merging so that there was no way to know how many there were or had ever been. Anna’s desperation had reached a crescendo, her heart thundering against her ribs, her muscles tensed and her brain thrusting out of her skull - until the electric screaming of the bell merged with the screaming in her soul and the opening of the door signalled that it was, for now, over. Anna would run out of the chamber and momentarily gulp mouthfuls of fresh air - before the dread of anticipation would begin its slow and toxic ascent once more.
The dentist continued boring into her jaw. He was meticulous, poking and probing and removing the debris, using the bold white light to peer into the microscopic tunnels he’d created. The only way to save the tooth was to destroy it, he’d said, and use the wreckage as the foundation for a new tooth, a ceramic replacement for the original. It would be strong, he’d said. Under the existential glare of the therapeutic cyclops, Anna knew that he was right: survival necessitated destruction as resurrection necessitated death.
Be honest!
The only way to live was to destroy those things which were broken beyond repair and build new ones in their place. She sank back into the firm embrace of the dentist’s chair. She felt a sense of solace. Here, there was no pain, no terror and no noxious corruption. She could simply let time be and enjoy her peace.