Story-A-Day #10: Patient

PATIENT

It wasn’t a big deal. There was a hole in his tooth where an entire piece of it had just fallen out, a blackened piece of dead enamel, but it wasn’t a big deal. Getting his wisdom teeth out in the eleventh grade was a pretty big deal, but mostly because he had gotten hooked on his painkillers. That was still a bit of a blur though. He remembered waking up post surgery with two gauze tusks hanging from his swollen walrus face, then vomiting a bunch of blood into a nearby wastebasket, followed by a painful aftershock explosion of light in his head. His nurse repacked his holes with fresh gauze and a jackhammer and told him not to try standing up again.

Three weeks later he was still a mess.

This was nothing though, except for maybe a little weird in the first place. What makes a tooth break? How does a piece of something that hard just come loose and fall into the sink?

It had felt like a kernel of popcorn at first, but he hadn’t had popcorn in months. Still, it was no big deal.

He scanned the humble waiting room again. One wall was lined with diplomas and certificates, official looking documents that told him he was in good hands. The opposite wall was covered in Polaroids of satisfied kids; the Wall of Fame it was called. He wondered where the dentist had gotten a Polaroid camera, let alone the film to put in it.

In the corner, an industrial grade rubber mat was covered in soggy, salt stained boots and full of slushy residue. He glanced at his socked right foot, perched gently over his left thigh, and bobbed it up and down a couple times.

Waiting rooms were funny places. This one happened to be empty, aside from himself. There were a stack of magazines on a nearby table, but they were old and full of gossipy z-grade celebrity stories. The radio played a familiar song, which was no real surprise because they always seemed to play the same familiar songs.

Finally, after what seemed like half an hour, but was actually just a little longer than a full hour, the nurse called his name and pointed towards the rear of the office. He stood smoothly, returning her smile as she apologized for the wait.

“No big deal,” he replied.

Patience really was a virtue.