The Sound of Inevitability

The difference between an incoming shell and an outgoing one, says Dad, a veteran of the Emergency and numerous live-fire exercises, is that unmistakable whistling sound it makes as the warhead (with your name on it?) is about to impact on your position.

Not to be confused with the deliberate whoosh of an outgoing shell, which makes a sound like ripping linen as it arcs across its flight path, or the concussive whump, whump, whump of the consequent explosion. No, says Dad, you'll know yours when you hear it.

Today, my sound of inevitability was the whir-click-whir of a dentist's drill as it made contact with the yellow wall of plaque on my molars. That tumultuous second before it bores into your teeth and starts to screech and whine like a kid with a particularly bad tantrum. That eerie buzzing sound, so itemized with finality of intense pain.

(They're made of diamonds, did you know that? Fucking diamonds!)

So, I sit there with my back slightly arched from the expectantcy of pain, my mouth an obscene gaping maw, my tongue hugging the roof, all in a day's work, the drilling goes on and on.

It's purgatory, it's every dentist in the world winking at you and saying I told you so. It's every single nerve in your mouth on fire. It's way overdue.

That was actually the first time in many months that I went to the dentist. So what!

It's not that I don't believe in the miracles of modern medicine, but I brush my teeth at least twice a day and do my 30-seconds with the mouthwash like everybody else.

Isn't that enough? Jeez, do you really have to go every six months?

Evidently, you do.

Well, OK.

And so:

"This might hurt a little..."

They always lie, don't they?