The Dentist of Life

Dentist of Life — A short story by LJ Kundananji

"Are you comfortable?" He asked, looking down at me with a reassuring smile.

"Yeah." I said with a smug, confident expression. The backrest was pulled down to a nearly horizontal position so that I was lying on my back, staring at the cream ceiling. I felt vulnerable. At the same time, I felt safe, protected, because I trusted him. He had done this so many times before. I was not the first person he had performed this operation on, was I? Surely, they had all lived. I would live too. I was certain of it.

"Good. I just want you to relax, now." He put on his white, surgical gloves, wriggling his fingers to make them go all the way in.

"I am relaxed."

"And keep your mouth open." He covered his mouth with a white mask, fastening its straps behind his head.

I wonder why he does that, I thought, as if my mouth reeks. Maybe it does.

I watched him from the corner of my eyes as he picked up what appeared to be a long, flat, narrow, silver piece of metal. It was shaped like a spoon at one end. It was very shiny. He inserted it into my open mouth and used it to push my tongue clear of my teeth. It was cold and hard. There was a torch in his other hand. He shone it into my mouth. He ran the spoon-like end against my teeth.

It must be a mirror. My teeth are terrible, man. Rotten. You must be disgusted. But even if he was, I couldn’t tell. There must have been a sneer behind that mask.

“You’ve got six cavities.” He announced, his brows wrinkling into a frown.

He must be joking. Six! It was only one. Where did the other five come from?

He put down the mirror and picked up another metallic instrument. It was sharp and pointed at one end. I eyeballed it a bit nervously as he moved to insert it into my mouth. He poked at my teeth with it, making me feel the holes I hadn’t been feeling all this while. He counted them with the tip of the instrument, digging and scraping at them. I gulped. My tongue was becoming dry. The floor of my mouth, however, was flooding slowly with saliva. I coughed.

“Alright!” he suddenly withdrew the instrument and sat back. “We will fill them in one at a time.”

He removed the mask and I saw the reassuring smile on his mouth. “Are we okay with that?”

I was glad to have an opportunity to swallow the flood in my mouth. “That’s okay.” My voice was husky. “We gonna fill them all in today?”

“Not possible. We can only do it one at a time. One each month.”

I felt a little disappointed by this revelation, but it was just as well. Filling in one tooth was one hundred fifty thousand kwacha. It had put a frown on daddy’s face when I had told him the amount, and he had given it to me with a sad look in his eyes. Father never liked parting with money, no matter how little.

When he pulled back the mask over his mouth, I knew it was time for the real deal.

“Remember, all you got to do is relax.” He said. “It will be as painless as death.”

I gave a nervous chuckle. It was an apt comparison. Death was painless. But it unsettled me.

“Lie back and say ‘ah’.” I was wise enough to know that he did not mean I literally say ‘ah’. But I did it anyway. It wouldn’t hurt to try.

“Yeah, just like that. But keep your mouth open.” He pulled up his stool and sat down, directly above me. It was one of those classy stools that had wheels at the bottom for easy manoeuvering. I had taken a look.

I sure hope it has breaks. I wouldn’t want him speeding off in the middle of it all, carrying half my mouth with him.

He had two different set of gadgets. One had a long, tube-like projection at one end and had a relatively long code that was attached to an impressive looking, cylindrical machine. The other appeared to be a drill. It must have been a drill. It was a drill.

Nearby was a lamp attached to a long, adjustable frame. I did not notice it till he switched it on. It shone directly into my eyes. The bright beam of light made me momentarily blind. I shut my eyes. When I opened them, the bright beam was streaming into my mouth.

A little while later, he was hovering over me, staring into my mouth.

“We’ll start with the severest.” His voice sounded muffled.

He switched the drill on. It made a sharp whistling sound. I gulped as he slowly inserted it into my mouth. My mouth was watering again. I felt as though I was going to drown in my own saliva. I had no way of swallowing, or spitting. But I felt a small little tube poking at the bottom of my mouth. It sucked at the saliva and before I knew it, the bottom of my mouth was nearly dry.

Neat. I thought. He is definitely an expert at these things. But when I felt the drill on my tooth, I nearly lost all confidence. I winced, expecting to feel tremendous pain. But that’s not what I felt. Not quite. What I felt was metal drilling into my tooth, into the hole in my tooth, making it bigger, larger. He did a good job of keeping my tongue out of the way with his little suction tube, which was sucking gently at the side of my gum.

He is going to hit the pulp. I remembered my science. The pulp was that part of the tooth which contained the blood vessels and all the nerves. The part which felt pain. But the whole point of filling in a cavity was to prevent it from reaching the pulp, wasn’t it? That was what the dentist was doing: drilling out the rot. Then he was going to fill it in. That would put a halt to the cavity, preventing it from getting any deeper; preventing toothache.

That was the whole point. He was trying to prevent damage to the pulp by patching up the cavity. But I couldn’t help thinking: he’s going to hit the pulp; and then I’ll be screwed.

The drill’s sound became sharper as it grazed against my tooth. That’s when I realized that teeth were hard. As hard as bone.

Teeth are bone. Hard as metal. No, nearly as hard.

The tube sucked away bits and pieces of my tooth. The hole was very large now. I could feel it. He had hewn out almost the whole middle section of my tooth, creating a somewhat rectangular pit.

“The filling is permanent, so you can be rest assured that it will last the rest of your life.” He said.

That’s reassuring. Better be permanent mister, considering the size of that hole. I’d be totally screwed if the filing were to somehow fall out.

As he continued drilling, I began to feel something close to pain. But it was not pain. Not yet. I was on the threshold of pain. And then I began to lose my cool.

Then I felt it. It was more painful than anything I had ever felt. It was as though my jaw had split apart.

“Shit!” The Dentist said as I writhed in my seat. He quickly backed away.

My eyes were popping out, but unseeing. I was in sheer agony. Slowly, everything faded to darkness...

“What do you fear the most, Chansa?” a voice said somewhere in the darkness.

“Huh?” Suddenly, I was surrounded by a bright, blinding light. I blinked as my eyes adjusted. I found myself seated at a table, in a restaurant. I knew the place. It was my favourite restaurant. Along Cairo road. I felt a soft, warm touch on my hand. And that gentle, sweet voice again.

“You have not answered the question.”

“Am sorry.” I breathed as I stared into her puzzled face. “I’m a little confused.”

“It’s a simple question.” she smiled sweetly back at me. My heart melted. Oh how I loved that smile. Her hand was atop mine, on the table, caressing it gently. I got my other hand and placed it on hers. I stared deeply into her eyes. Big, beautiful, brown eyes.

I took in a deep breath: “I am afraid of love because it can turn to hate; I am afraid of living because I can die; I am afraid of laughter because it can cease; I am afraid of pleasure because it can turn to hurt.”

She frowned. “That is… sad.”

I smiled. “Would you like to know what I am not afraid of?”

She nodded her head eagerly.

“I am not afraid of being sad, because it will turn to laughter; I am not afraid of hurting ‘cause hurt don’t last forever; I am not afraid of bad because it will be conquered by good; I am not afraid of death because it is painless.”

There was a moment of silence as we stared at each other.

“Your turn.” I said, shaking her hand. “Tell me what you fear the most.”

“I am afraid of losing you.” A poignant expression stretched across her beautiful face. My heart beat faster as I contemplated her. With her long, black, thick hair sweeping her shoulders, her chocolate brown complexion, her full bosom and the light, white dress she was wearing, she looked angelic.

“I’m still here.” I said, but I had this bad feeling I had already lost her. “I am still here, Mutinta.”

I leaned forward and kissed her, my eyes closed as I savored her soft, thick lips.

When I opened my eyes, I was surprised to find my brother, Kaluba staring at me with a frown.

“Why you making kissy faces at me?” He asked. “You’re freaking me out!”

“What?” I rubbed my eyes in disbelief and looked around. “What… where are we?”

“Okay, I officially declare you insane.”

I understood why. We were in my brother’s room, seated on his bed. There were gamepads in our hands. We were playing our favourite racing game on his playstation. The gamepad fell out of my hands onto the floor. I made no effort to pick it up. Kaluba stared at me with a puzzled expression as I stood up and walked to the wall where he had stuck a couple of his drawings. Kaluba loved drawing.

“We are not done playing, dude,” he hissed. “We still got a level to complete.”

“I don’t feel like playing.”

“But… why? We’ve been playing for the past one hour.”

I must be dreaming. I thought. I must definitely be dreaming. This is too surreal.

I looked closely at the drawings on the wall. My eyes were suddenly fixed on one of them. It thoroughly mesmerized me.

“I haven’t seen this one before.”

“Oh, that one. I just drew it today.” He said casually.

“What do you call it?”

“Life.”

“Life?” I stared at the drawing. It did not resemble its theme in anyway. In fact, it did not make any sense. It was just a couple of twists and shapes that did not resemble anything I knew or had seen.

“Yeah.”

“Why do you call it that way? It’s just a couple of twisty, weird shapes.” I noted.

He smiled at my confusion. “When you look at it superficially, you cannot make any sense out of it; but when you look at it closely, you see everything, you see anything, and you see nothing. In other words, you see what you want to see. That’s how life is. You live it the way you make it.”

“Interesting.” I said contemplatively.

“So tell me,” he asked. “What do you see?”

“Hmm. I see… I see a path. I see the path I must walk on to get to a very happy place. It is treacherous, and passes through tough terrain. But the more treacherous the path, the happier the place. Thanks, Kaluba.”

I slowly turned to look at him. But I didn’t see him. Instead, I saw mother, standing at the stove. There were pots on the stove, full of cooking food, hissing out streams of steam. She lifted one of the lids and dipped in a spoon. She brought it to her nose and sniffed at it, and then she brought it to her mouth and sipped at its contents. She wore an apron over her clothes: a long brown, cotton skirt that nearly swept at the floor and a yellow, sleeveless blouse. The apron was smudged with oil and soup. My mum was slightly fat and round, but very pretty. She had short, spiky black hair, and a round head. She looked up and smiled. Dimples appeared in her cheeks.

“Chansa, there you are!” she said, her voice warm, her eyes shining.

“Mom.” Tears suddenly flooded my eyes and I felt a painful lump on my throat.

“What is it, son?” she asked. A few moments later, she was by my side, caressing my face with her warm hands.

I was sobbing heavily. She hugged me against her bosom, her hands stroking my head. “Shush, now, don’t cry.”

The apron was dump and uncomfortable against my face, but I did not care.

“Mom,” I asked in between sobs, “Do you love me?”

She responded by lifting my head gently so that I could look into her face. She did not need to say it. I saw it in her eyes.

“I love you more than you know.” She kissed my forehead.

“I think you were a mistake.” A heavy voice said in the doorway. “Both of you.”

It was dad. He had his hands crossed over his chest, a look of disgust on his face which made him look a little less handsome. He wore a blue, tight T-shirt that exposed his large biceps; and a greyish, jean trousers. He kept his hair very short and was always clean-shaven.

“What do you mean?” I could feel she was shaking.

“I shouldn’t have married you.” He spat. “You’ve made my life a living hell!”

“What? Mubanga, how could you say that?” Her voice was barely a whisper. “Tell me you don’t mean it.”

He smiled, but it only made him look dark and evil. “I mean it.”

I felt a surge of anger. How could he talk this way to us? To my Mother? I was not going to let him. I broke loose from mother’s arms and flew at my father.

“Chansa! No!” I heard my mother scream.

My father, however, was prepared for me. His fist landed on my jaw. I felt a sharp, flash of pain and I sank to the floor, holding my jaw. My father was laughing above me.

“What is your relationship with your father like?”

I was back in the dentist’s office. He was the one who had asked the question. I stared at him in confusion. I felt my jaw. There was no pain. I felt my tooth with my tongue. No cavity. It had been filled.

“Disturbing.” I said slowly, eying him warily.

He laughed. “Yeah, most father-son relationships are disturbing on so many levels.”

I eyed him suspiciously. There was something wrong. There was something different. He was wearing a black suit. I was seating upright in the seat. All his tools were stacked away neatly in one corner.

“You are done? I mean, with the cavity?”

He smiled and placed his hand on my shoulder. “Yes. The cavity was deeper than I anticipated, but I finally managed.”

I clumsily got to my feet. “I’ve got to leave.”

“Sure.” He stretched out his hand and I shook it.

I walked to the coat-rack and picked up my coat. I slowly walked towards the door.

“Chansa,” he called. I turned and looked at him. He winked. “Remember when I said it was going to be as painless as death?”

“Um, yeah,” my mind was cloudy.

“Well, maybe it wasn’t, and maybe I had to kill you to make it painless.”

I sniggered. “You didn’t kill me. You brought me to life.”

He appeared puzzled. But I had no time to explain. I walked out and closed the door behind me.

“See you next month.” I said to myself, putting on my coat. “In the meantime, I have a life to live.”

© 2011 Kundananji Creations

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