Hell Found me in the dentist's chair.

Mrs. Smith and her son, David, visit the dentist one bright August day.

Hell Found Me in the Dentist's Chair

David and I sat on the sterile plastic seats, the air thick with the smell of clove oil and a metallic tang that signaled the hidden violence of the place. The surgery was a hive of frantic activity. When wasn't it? We were there for David's six-month check-up, and immediately after, my "emergency" extraction.

I couldn't let the mask slip. At eight years old, David read the room like a divining rod; he knew the scent of fear. I handed him a comic, but his fingers were damp. His face had taken on that waxy, translucent pallor that preceded his nervous meltdowns.

I was "lucky," the receptionist had told me. Lucky to be fitted in. I didn't feel lucky. I felt the jagged, serrated edge of my molar where the toast had betrayed me. My tongue was a moth to a flame, constantly seeking out the raw, sharp crater in the back of my mouth until the muscle was shredded and bleeding.

"Mr. Khan is on holiday," the receptionist had said, her voice dripping with a boredom that bordered on malice. "We have a locum. Mr. Keen. I'll put you in after David."

Hell found me in that surgery on a glorious, mocking August morning.

The Child from Hell

"You can go in now, Mrs. Smith."

I placed a hand on David's back, feeling the frantic thrum of his heart through his t-shirt. He looked up at me with wide, sapphire eyes, and I felt like a Judas. We walked toward the chair, the great, hydraulic altar of the room. One look at Mr. Keen, standing there in a starch-white coat that smelled of bleach and clinical indifference, and David's survival instincts took over.

As the chair began its slow, mechanical ascent, David's right leg shot out like a piston, catching the dentist squarely in the groin.
Mr. Keen didn't cry out. He simply doubled over, his face turning a dark, bruised purple. He straightened up slowly, his eyes cold and devoid of any paternal warmth. "Does he always behave like this, Mrs. Smith?"

"He's usually very good," I lied, my voice trembling.

"Well, we shan't get very far if he does that again," Keen retorted. He didn't try to coax David. He didn't offer a sticker or a kind word. He approached my son like a mechanic approaching a faulty engine.

"You'll have to hold him still," he commanded, his voice a sharp blade.

"That's your job," I snapped, the protective mother rising in me even as my own dread swirled. "You should have a better bedside manner."
"You'll have to take him home then," he said, turning his back on us.

I knew then that if we left, David would never step foot in a surgery again. I forced my voice into a hard, authoritative stone. "David. Sit still and open your mouth. NOW."

It worked, but the check-up was a grim, silent affair. When it was over, the nurse led David away to the waiting room, leaving me alone with the man whose ego I had just bruised.

The Descent

"What's the trouble?" Keen asked, not looking at me as he snapped on a pair of tight latex gloves. The sound was like a whip cracking.
"I've broken my back tooth," I mumbled, my finger pointing into the dark recesses of my mouth.

He leaned in, his small, circular mirror reflecting the harsh fluorescent lights. I breathed, and the glass fogged. He wiped it with a rough, impatient thumb. "Ah. Broken to the gum line. We can try a crown, five to nine hundred pounds, or we take it out."

"Take it out," I whispered.

He didn't argue. He reached for a syringe that looked like an antique relic of the Inquisition. It was a long, gleaming spike of steel. I watched, paralyzed, as he brought it toward my face. He didn't look for a soft spot; he drove the needle deep into the inflamed gum, once, twice, three times. I felt the bitter, chemical burn of the anesthetic trickling down my throat, a cold poison that began to kill the sensation in my jaw.
"Go wait for it to take effect," he said. "Then we'll blow the little tooth away."

Ten minutes later, the left side of my face was a slab of dead meat. My lip felt like a huge, wet slug hanging from my skull. When I returned to the chair, Keen tilted it back until my head was lower than my heart. The overhead lamp was a blinding sun, searing my retinas, threatening a migraine. I stared at the ceiling, a flat, white nothingness, and wondered if God was hiding behind the acoustic tiles.

The Saw and the Bone

"Can you feel this?" He banged the broken molar with a metal tool. A dull vibration echoed through my cranium.

"Yes," I grunted.

"And this?" He prodded the gum. A sharp, lightning-strike of pain flared.

"I'll give you more," he muttered, looking annoyed. Another needle. More cold poison.

He picked up a pair of heavy, silver forceps. I closed my eyes, but I couldn't close my ears. I felt the pressure first, an immense, crushing weight as he leaned his entire body into my jaw. Nothing moved. He tried again, his breathing becoming ragged and wet.

I opened my eyes and looked up. I was close enough to see and smell the beads of sweat breaking out on his forehead. I could see the stray, coarse hairs in his nostrils and something else, a flicker of pure, unadulterated panic in his eyes. He was out of his depth. He was a boy playing with a saw.

"The roots," he panted, "they're wrapped around the jawbone like a vice. I have to free them."

He reached for the drill, but it wasn't the high-pitched whine I expected. It was a lower, guttural growl. A miniature saw.
He began to cut.

I felt no pain, but the horror was worse. I felt the vibration of the blade slicing through the bone of my skull. I felt the hot spray of blood and cooling water against the roof of my mouth. In my mind, the roots of the tooth weren't bone; they were black snakes, burrowing deep into my marrow, refusing to let go
.
Keen stopped. He was shaking. "I'm going to consult Mr. Johnson, the senior partner."

He vanished, leaving me tilted back, my mouth a bloody ruin, tears leaking from the corners of my eyes and disappearing into my hairline. The numbness was a ticking clock. I knew that when it stopped, the agony would be biblical.

The Final Violation

He returned with Mr. Johnson, an older man with the weary eyes of a butcher. Johnson looked into the red cavern of my mouth and frowned. "You'll have to cut into the jaw itself," he said, his voice a casual drone. "Free the anchor."

Keen took the saw again. Under the watchful, judging eye of the senior partner, he became desperate. The sawing was frantic now. My head thrashed against the headrest. I began to pray, a silent, rhythmic plea: Please God, let me live, I'll be good, I'll be better, just let me get out of this chair.

"Make haste," Johnson urged. "The anesthetic is failing."

With a sudden, sickening crunch that sounded like a dry branch snapping in winter, the resistance broke. I heard the tooth, the white, bloody demon, fall into the metal tray with a sharp clink.

"All done," Keen said, his voice flat, devoid of the triumph he hadn't earned. "You've been very brave."

The Significance of Silence

The chair groaned as it returned me to the upright position. As the blood rushed from my head, the room spun. The numbness was already retreating, replaced by a throbbing, pulsing heat that felt like a heartbeat in my jaw.

"Take an aspirin when you get home," Keen suggested, already turning to wash his hands, dismissing me like a piece of refuse.
I fumbled for a handkerchief, pressing the white cloth to my face. It turned crimson instantly. My legs were water, but I forced them to hold me. I walked to the waiting room.

The crowd in the waiting room had increased in the three quarters of an hour I had been in surgery. The people waiting looked at me, sympathetic but horror struck - the pale, trembling woman with the blood-soaked rag, and then they looked away, their own anxieties redoubled. David was there, playing with his toy car. He looked up, searching my face for the lie.

"Ready, darling?" I slurred, the words thick and distorted by the packing in my gum.

"Did it hurt, Mummy?"

"Not at all," I said, a fresh surge of blood warm against my tongue. "A walk in the park."

As we stepped out into the bright, indifferent August sun, the horror didn't stay behind in the surgery. It followed me. I looked at the shoppers, the cars, the beautiful lime trees, and I realized that at any moment, the world could tilt back, a bright light could shine in your eyes, and a man with a saw could tell you he's doing his best.

I squeezed David's hand. I realized then that being the "strong one" isn't about lack of fear. It's about the terrible, lonely silence of carrying a scream home in your pocket so your child doesn't have to hear it.

I walked on, the metallic taste of my own jaw filling my mouth, wondering if the snakes in the bone ever truly leave.