Gone Forever (Descriptive)

Wrrrrr! The mellifluous, soft buzzing of the suction pump resonated across the decrepit room. A lanky man with pearly white teeth and flared hairy nostrils bent over the chair. He wore scientist goggles and parakeet nitrile gloves that matched the color of his gelled, spiked hair like a troubled gangster from the 70’s Bollywood blockbuster.

A short, petite nurse in a cerulean coat and a neat frumpy bun, her looks almost comical, a real-life Betty Boop, looked at the spectacle before her. She wobbled like a penguin; her shoes squeaked repetitively- Boop-Oop-a-Doop! She held the ends of my body firm: her long, razor-sharp nails piercing through the shirt and into the skin, restricting any sort of movement and inflicting agony. Jitters ran through me, her crooked smile conveniently terrifying.

The man pulled open the place of surgery like a gift a child had desperately longed to receive; his wide eyes embodied anticipation as he rubbed the ridges of every crown before he finally located the treasure. My mouth was a cavern of gemstones, glistening canines standing upright until nothing but matte blackness. An alien hand reached out to the bruised, disfigured gum touching the immature tooth that stroked the limp tissues laboriously tearing its way through the minute cut. This was no worse than a baby cramming its way through agonizing labour. The steady armrests provided me absolute momentary coziness in this exquisitely awful situation.

A light, the shade of honey, was aggressively pulled over my head, blinding me like a hare in the spotlight, like a caged bird with her wings clipped. The source of such excruciating pain was sadistically pressured by the dentist man, the flavor of rubber spreading across every taste bud. One prick! Two pricks! Intermittent screams filled the clinic before the gooey serum of Benzonatate finally started taking effect. It subtly diffused into my veins, numbing my senses. The heavenly fluid languidly found its way to the nooks and corners giving me a psychedelic experience of hallucinations and altered perceptions…

The drilling echoed through the torture chamber, music to dentist’s ears as he pleasurably hummed the tunes of Waltz in E minor from the worn-down speakers. Hm-Hmm-Hmmm-Hm. A tune that varied in pitch and tempo. He pushed a liquid down the throat; a liquid that tasted like rust. The constant torture was unbearable; the pleas to stop left ignored. This was worse than death…

Nestled in the deepest dreariest corners, away from the public eye stood The Destined Dentist, also known as the Devils Den, a moniker crafted by a fretful thirteen-year-old when she was nothing more than a little, meek girl, that is me. The clinic’s exterior was adorned by common amethyst non-fragrant bougainvillea. An interminable line of patients waited outside, restless, under the dilapidated board that had bold letters almost unrecognizable due to bird faeces, damp moss and years of surviving catastrophic weathers. A terrible style of décor, a perdition in disguise. In complete contrast to Bajaj Road, a street overwhelmingly aromatic with a rainbow of smells wafting from street stalls. The chittering and chattering of women under the afternoon sun light, obliterated the pain and the pricks of the victims in another world few establishments away…

The outside world was difficult to obliviate. The door shut tight dividing the room and the world outside; however, the small cracks did reveal the sweet harmonies of low blue toons that resounded from next door along with undistinguishable muffled sounds of machines and people. The doorknob almost detached, swinging like a bobblehead. Adjacent were concrete walls home to once vibrant colors, now a mix of slate and splattered Aegean. Small wooden frames were hammered into the walls, hugging them, displaying polished vampire fangs, some like they had been carved to perfection, the rest horridly blemished and cracked. A memorandum to remind the man of his indefinite failures.

A faint gurgling sound from the back met my ears. It continued before gargantuan balls of supple, spongy material were cautiously stuffed into the back of my mouth. Minutes after miniscule, delicate threads sat on the mobile tongue the conspicuous taste of cotton spread across carrying frosty metallic hints of blood. The nurse approached the chair before haphazardly spraying a misty fragrance over me, one that smelled like a dandelion field, replacing the musty stench. The fragrance tickled my nose, threatening a boisterous sneeze. An elevator forced apart the attachment of my tooth to the tissues, expanding the tooth swiftly along with its companion the Periosteal elevators. The next few steps were blur until the tooth was extracted and daintily placed into a blanch bowl, surrounded by scarlet fluids.

Glistening eyes met the dentist’s, a faint smile on his lips, I feebly grinned back gaining my confidence. I was a battle ravaged soldier. The inside of my mouth could feel the onslaught of surgical tools. An acerbic, pungent scent of chemical sterilant diffused into the air while the post-surgery tasks tediously began.

As I stepped out of the dentistry, the chaotic world welcomed me, enlightening me of the troubles I had escaped for a few hours.