(no subject)
Thanks Rachel. You made quite an interesting mix! Hope I don't disappoint!
banana, dentist, keys, cycling, roomate.
"Looks like 3 molars and a cuspid have to go," the dentist said after a cursory inspection. "Don't worry, we'll have you out of here in no time at all."
Chloe rubbed her jaw in with a reluctant acceptance. In any other state she would have tried to talk her way out of surgery, but not today. She thought back a little to try and find anything that matched the agony she was currently in, trying to take her mind off the dull and incessant torment. She thought back to the time she'd bruised her rib cycling in the Appalachians. She remembered how it felt to draw a breath and have it feel like a bee lodged in her lung, stinging at her every time she so much as flinched. God, she thought, that pain seemed to last forever.
And now something much, much worse.
"How long is no time at all?" she said, clenching her teeth through the pain of speaking.
"Oh, two to three hours at most. If you're lucky just one. Don't worry, we're gonna take care of you quick as can be. Quick as can be..." he said as he walked off, reviewing her chart.
Chloe sat there staring at the overhead light, which for now was sitting idle but still uncomfortably close to her face. She leaned back in the chair and started drifting off into the magazines she'd been reading in the waiting room, trying anything to get her mind off the pain. She saw herself fishing on a quiet river, just like the one on the cover of Fish and Game. Her and Bob, rolling down the river, with the little bobber floating up and down in the water and not a care in the world.
Not a care in the world.
Not one, except this damn pain in her jaw.
She crashed back to reality, back from her little boat in the middle of a bright green wonderland to the stark white office of Doctor Emily Warren.
And this chair, for all it's padding, was far less comfortable than any rickety raft she'd ever encountered.
Chloe rubbed her jaw in pain again and started looking around the room, desperate to find anything to keep her mind off of why she was here. She started playing with the instruments, hoping one of them might provide her a moment or two of enjoyment. She prodded the back of one of the brushes, accidently setting it off and spreading an incredible amount of noise through the room. She fumbled with it for a second, dropped it on her lap and picked it up again. She pushed the button on the back again, but to her dismay it only sped the instrument up to full blast. She pushed on more time and the brush lost speed, eventually stopping as she quickly placed it back into it's recepticle. She snuck a peek back at the door, hoping no one had noticed her little adventure. The nurses hadn't seemed to notice. She breathed a sigh of relief.
She laid her head back again, the pain streaking through her face once more, and she drifted off into another train of thought as she stared into the ceiling. She wondered what she was going to eat, now that she'd be losing so many teeth. Probably nothing harder than a banana, at least for a while. Well, she could crush up some crackers with her good teeth. Or better yet let them get softened by a warm french-onion soup. She used to make Bob this french-onion soup that...
The pain came back in a flash, blinding her visions once more. She couldn't tolerate waiting any longer, but it was the doctors who couldn't feel her agony. They only knew the problem, the symptoms, the physical dimensions of her torment. They just couldn't understand how much it hurt to...
She put it out of her mind again. She didn't want to relive all that again. One time through the pain was plenty enough.
Chloe sat back in the chair, trying to convince herself the pain wasn't real. Pain? This wasn't pain. She remembered a story her college roomate had told her about her sisters death, about watching her suffer
and feeling every pain she did. It wasn't physical at all. She had no symptoms. It was watching her loved one fade away into something else, watching every moment of her agony and realizing she had to share it or suffer worse. That was pain. That was something she had never wanted to see happen to anyone she knew.
Not her worse enemy, not her best friend, especially not Bob.
Bob.
She reached down to her keys and grabbed the little letters that spelled out his name. She looked at them curiously, her pain increasing each moment she stared at them.
She rubbed her jaw, bruised and aching from swelling.
She wondered where the dentist was. She wondered why Bob had done this to her.
She wondered where the pain really came from.
banana, dentist, keys, cycling, roomate.
"Looks like 3 molars and a cuspid have to go," the dentist said after a cursory inspection. "Don't worry, we'll have you out of here in no time at all."
Chloe rubbed her jaw in with a reluctant acceptance. In any other state she would have tried to talk her way out of surgery, but not today. She thought back a little to try and find anything that matched the agony she was currently in, trying to take her mind off the dull and incessant torment. She thought back to the time she'd bruised her rib cycling in the Appalachians. She remembered how it felt to draw a breath and have it feel like a bee lodged in her lung, stinging at her every time she so much as flinched. God, she thought, that pain seemed to last forever.
And now something much, much worse.
"How long is no time at all?" she said, clenching her teeth through the pain of speaking.
"Oh, two to three hours at most. If you're lucky just one. Don't worry, we're gonna take care of you quick as can be. Quick as can be..." he said as he walked off, reviewing her chart.
Chloe sat there staring at the overhead light, which for now was sitting idle but still uncomfortably close to her face. She leaned back in the chair and started drifting off into the magazines she'd been reading in the waiting room, trying anything to get her mind off the pain. She saw herself fishing on a quiet river, just like the one on the cover of Fish and Game. Her and Bob, rolling down the river, with the little bobber floating up and down in the water and not a care in the world.
Not a care in the world.
Not one, except this damn pain in her jaw.
She crashed back to reality, back from her little boat in the middle of a bright green wonderland to the stark white office of Doctor Emily Warren.
And this chair, for all it's padding, was far less comfortable than any rickety raft she'd ever encountered.
Chloe rubbed her jaw in pain again and started looking around the room, desperate to find anything to keep her mind off of why she was here. She started playing with the instruments, hoping one of them might provide her a moment or two of enjoyment. She prodded the back of one of the brushes, accidently setting it off and spreading an incredible amount of noise through the room. She fumbled with it for a second, dropped it on her lap and picked it up again. She pushed the button on the back again, but to her dismay it only sped the instrument up to full blast. She pushed on more time and the brush lost speed, eventually stopping as she quickly placed it back into it's recepticle. She snuck a peek back at the door, hoping no one had noticed her little adventure. The nurses hadn't seemed to notice. She breathed a sigh of relief.
She laid her head back again, the pain streaking through her face once more, and she drifted off into another train of thought as she stared into the ceiling. She wondered what she was going to eat, now that she'd be losing so many teeth. Probably nothing harder than a banana, at least for a while. Well, she could crush up some crackers with her good teeth. Or better yet let them get softened by a warm french-onion soup. She used to make Bob this french-onion soup that...
The pain came back in a flash, blinding her visions once more. She couldn't tolerate waiting any longer, but it was the doctors who couldn't feel her agony. They only knew the problem, the symptoms, the physical dimensions of her torment. They just couldn't understand how much it hurt to...
She put it out of her mind again. She didn't want to relive all that again. One time through the pain was plenty enough.
Chloe sat back in the chair, trying to convince herself the pain wasn't real. Pain? This wasn't pain. She remembered a story her college roomate had told her about her sisters death, about watching her suffer
and feeling every pain she did. It wasn't physical at all. She had no symptoms. It was watching her loved one fade away into something else, watching every moment of her agony and realizing she had to share it or suffer worse. That was pain. That was something she had never wanted to see happen to anyone she knew.
Not her worse enemy, not her best friend, especially not Bob.
Bob.
She reached down to her keys and grabbed the little letters that spelled out his name. She looked at them curiously, her pain increasing each moment she stared at them.
She rubbed her jaw, bruised and aching from swelling.
She wondered where the dentist was. She wondered why Bob had done this to her.
She wondered where the pain really came from.