Oral

There is a dull ache in the back of my jaw, on the left side, so dull that I sometimes doubt its reality, but it manages to occupy my mind with annoying persistence. Weeks of waiting have not achieved the mysterious disappearance I hoped for, so I text my girlfriend to make an urgent appointment for me at the dentist. Minutes later she sends me the address and time and a reminder of where to find the navigation system (rightmost drawer, dining room cabinet).

~The Waiting Room~
In the waiting room, a man sitting directly opposite me has a nose so long that it cannot be true, but it is. Otherwise an ordinary human--I judge him to be in his fifties--he has a terrifying Pinocchio-like extension stabbing out from where the tip of his nose should be. It's dark purple and severely pickled. He turns his head and my eyes follow the thing as it's swung around by his face. Hypnotic. When my name is called it's an interruption from what I must admit was a strangely interesting distraction.

~The Room Itself~
Should it be calming that the assistant wears a white coat so tight that the buttons around her breast strain to hold the contents in? She has a matching white hat and face mask. Otherwise dark, curly hair and an overall look of the middle-east. I can tell from her eyes (dark brown) that she is smiling at me behind the mask. She silently extends an arm to the chair, already in its horizontal position.

The dentist eventually enters from a second door. He starts poking around directly after introductions. When was my last checkup? I answer that I can’t quite remember. I don’t answer that it was certainly not within the last 15 years. Assistant tells him there’s nothing on the X-ray, nothing obvious with the probe, but there is a reaction to cold. He does not seem to pay her any attention. Yes, he says. He pauses. I must drill, he says.

I'm injected in the gum by something I truly hope will work and my mouth is stuffed with instruments so that my lips are near bursting. The drill is on and starts whining. Dentist tells me to tell him if there is pain. I can’t answer because my mouth is occupied. More than that, I seem to have disappeared altogether, for I cannot otherwise explain what Dentist is now saying to Assistant in my presence: these new gloves are terrible, so slippery, I don’t have any grip at all, and all the time the drill screams and I feel a strange pressure on my molar.

This all isn’t as pleasant as I like things to be, so I attempt some self-distraction. Dentist doesn’t ask me what I do for a living, because he’s busy drilling, and I can’t speak, but I answer him in my imagination anyway: I sit at a computer and press buttons. You don’t sound very positive about it, he doesn’t say, and I don’t answer that I shouldn’t complain, because I do it by choice. What really disappoints me, is the knowledge that I wouldn’t be able to come up with anything better to do. I don’t say that of course, because my mouth is a building site. The jackhammer inside seems barely under control. I continue speaking silently: by far the majority of my time is empty space. Eating and sleeping etc. And then, just when I start to wonder whether I haven’t slipped away into pointlessness, something comes, invariably bad, and hits me with such a force that I feel more alive than I could ever wish. These are the unwanted highlights of my life. Isn’t it backwards? A pause. Dentist responds in a teacher-like voice: The universe is believed to be close to 100 billion light years across. Now if you...

Okay, I’m done drilling now, says the real Dentist, cutting his imaginary self off just as it was starting to get interesting. The pair remove their instruments and I’m asked if all is well. What was that? Are you alright, Dentist repeats. Yes, yes, I appear to be have survived.

When the filling is in, Assistant tells me to bite down, so I do, and then she asks if it feels okay. It feels numb. Yes, it feels numb, that’s from the injection, but does it feel like a fit? As far as I can tell, yes. She tells me to open my mouth, and looks in again. Looks good. Dentist looks and says the same. Then he walks out.

Assistant pours me a tiny cup of water from a mini-basin right next to my fancy chair. Rinse your mouth, she says, so I sit up and pour the water in. But it doesn’t work: to my bafflement the water pours straight out of my mouth down my chin and onto the floor. I am then helpfully informed that it will take some hours before the injection wears off and I can control my mouth properly again. I get up and walk out, fixing my mind on trying to recall what comes after the part about the 100 billion light years.