Coming to you a day late are this month’s Writing Club submissions! Now that Bear is temporarily free from college, everything should be more on schedule. Thanks to everyone who sent something in!

This month’s prompt is:

TEETH

//content warnings for body horror and violence

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     Jump to:
                  Bear          Jason

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Bear (Host of With Strange Aeons):

Amateur Archaeology

The ghosts of broken pots are prophesied by
kissing sherds, jigsaw patterns
slotting into the others. Every new step
brings a crackling underfoot, archaic
figures to dust.

Wood doesn’t remain, paint sloughing
off in sheets before rotting
to clay. Stone monuments
triumph regardless, no matter the
mosaic remaining.

Sun soaks into the black-
top, sweat-stained, parking
lot the closer it is to noon. Underneath it are
the impressions of hands
left abandoned, rings covered in asphalt. Gravel
falls away to reveal something more
forthcoming:
two sets of teeth, pushing against each other.

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Jason Soto (Host of Whatever with Jason Soto, That’s Da Bomb, Yo!, The TV Transmissions, and I Have A Weird One; Co-Host of Between The Scares, CineGamer, Musically Ignorant, and The FBI’s Most Unwanted)

“Derrick Robinson!”, the dental hygienist called out, leaning out of the doorway that connected the small waiting room to the back of the dentist’s office.

“Yeah, me!” I said, standing up, putting down an issue of Martha Stewart’s Living. Armed with the knowledge on how to grow vegetables and make sure they don’t get eaten by woodland creatures, I followed the pretty dental hygienist towards the back. She leads me into a room and motions for me to sit in the big chair in the middle of the room.

I sat down and she pressed a button that tilts the chair back, putting me into a laying position.

“Dr. Rosen will be with you in a minute, I’m just going to prep you.”

“Okie dokie!”

The dental hygienist puts a blue bib on me, makes me rinse my mouth out with some bitter liquid, and starts poking at my teeth with a rather sharp scraper.

“Hmm…Dr. Rosen isn’t going to like this,” she said.

“Huh?” I said while her fingers and tools were in my mouth.

“Every time I poke at your gums, it starts bleeding. That’s not good. You might be getting gum disease.”

“Huh.”

She pokes into my mouth some more, writes something down in my chart, and then gives me a small smile.

“OK, sit tight. The doc will be in momentarily.”

The dental hygienist leaves me alone in the room, just laying on my back, looking at the ceiling. I look around and read all the anti-cavity posters, full of candy icons marked with a big red circle and a line through it. Black and white images of kids with missing teeth wearing dirty clothing and sitting on the street begging for change and bright color pictures of kids in a generic yard in front of a yellow house and a white picket fence, mouth full of teeth and looking happier than ever.

I was starting to read why tartar was bad when I heard a small scream. I tried to figure out which direction it was coming from. 
Maybe to the right? Whoever it is I guess he can’t handle his teeth being poked at.

I then noticed that my chart was just on the counter to my right, but I was unable to see it. What could be in there? I tried to sit up but being in this laid-back position made it hard. And there were wires and a smaller table on wheels next to me. It’d be hard to roll out. Maybe if I just strain my neck a little…

I can see the word “unappreciative” when the door flies open, and Dr. Rosen is standing there. He’s a bit over 6 feet tall, bald on the top and short black hair on his sides and back. He’s wearing thick square glasses, a black tie, a white button-down shirt, and has several pens and poking tools coming out of his shirt pocket. Shouldn’t those tools be sanitized?

“Hello,” Dr. Rosen said.

“Hi,” I said nervously, laying back down.

Dr. Rosen silently goes to my chart, reads it, then he looks at me, shaking his head.

“Tsk tsk tsk…looks like your teeth are a disaster!”

“Really? I brush every day.”

“Do you floss?!?!” Dr. Rosen said sharply. “Do you use mouthwash? Do you scrape your tongue?! WELL?!?!”

“Uh, uh…I floss. I use mouthwash when I go on dates. Scrape my tongue?”

“Let me take a look!”

“Ok-“

In an instant, he’s grabbing my head, pushing it back against the headrest of the chair and grabbing my jaw, holding my mouth open. He gets way too close to my face, peering into my mouth.

“Oh my god!” Dr. Rosen exclaimed. “You have a mouth full of cavities!”

“Wha?” I said with my jaw in his hands.

“We’re gonna have to remove them.”

“Remove? Why not fillings?”

“Fillings! BAH!! You don’t deserve your teeth!!”

Then Dr. Rosen pulled out the biggest pair of pliers I’ve ever seen. Stainless steel but covered in blood.

“Whoa, shouldn’t you wash that?” I said, trying to back away.

“Lay back…this will hurt you more than me…” Dr. Rosen said, giggling.

Before I know it, Rosen is straddling my body on the chair, holding the pliers in one hand and holding my jaw open with the other. He lowers the pliers into the mouth and grabs ahold of a tooth. I’m struggling, trying to fight him off but he weighs more than me and has a tight grip on my head.

I feel the tip of the pliers touch a tooth and grip it. Soon, Rosen is yanking it back has hard as he can. My mouth explodes in pain. I start hitting him in hopes of knocking him off. But the pain is winning and soon his arm extends back and the pilar is out of my mouth. On the end of it is a tooth, blood dripping on the end of it. My mouth is on fire with pain.

“One down…31 more to go!”

“What?!?!

Rosen drops my tooth into his hand and puts the tooth in his pocket. He leans down and grabs another tooth and starts yanking on it like he did the first one. I look around and spot to my left a small tray on another wheeled table, this one a bit taller. Rosen pulls out a second tooth, dripping blood on me.

“Two!!”

He pockets the second tooth and goes in for the third time. My hand connected with the tray and before the pair of pliers went back into my mouth I smacked him as hard as I could with the tray on his head. This catches him off balance and he goes crashing onto the floor. I figured out quickly how to get up from this chair and head for the door.

“STOP HIM!! HIS MOUTH IS DIRTY!!!!!” Rosen yelled loudly.

Soon, all the doors in the hallway open and all the dental hygienists poke their heads out and see me. One of them walks out into the hallway, with a manual saw dripping with blood. From my peripheral vision I see a man with most of his jaw removed. The hygienist swings the saw at me but I duck and manage to get around her.

I felt a sharp pain in my leg and realized they were scrapers, the same kind that was used on me earlier is now sticking out of my leg. Soon more sharp pains on my back, neck, and arms. They’re throwing those like ninja stars. I manage to reach the door that leads to the waiting room and find it locked. Fuck!

The receptionist desk was to my left and there was an open counter so I ran toward that, slide across the counter, and headed for the front door.

Outside, I get to my car, unlock it, get in, and immediately lock it. Soon, all the dental hygienists are filing out of the building and jumping on my hard, pounding at my window, making little cracks. I start my car up, noticing the number of sharp tools sticking out of my arm, and back up, knocking some of them off. I speed away, the rest falling off my car.

On the way home I pull out all the sharpened scrapers that I could get while driving. There was a lot. I pulled into my driveway and stopped the car. I walked into my house, limping, feeling blood dripping down my body and close the door.

I should tell someone but who’s gonna believe me. My mouth is filled with blood. I swallow it.

“Derrick? Is that you?” my wife called out.

“Yeah…” I said weakly.

“How was the dentist?”

I paused as I slid down the wall and sat on the floor.

“Brutal…”