Lost wisdom
A dental moment
August 1, 2003
The Iranian
I lie in this cold, plastic chair, and look up at the drab ceiling,
bored
out of my mind. Light, classical music plays in the background
like the
soundtrack to some movie, the kind whose plot you can never understand.
My
hands grip the chair handles and my unpainted nails begin to carve
into the
sliding textures, as if gripping onto some hope that this will
all be over
soon. As if my nails scorching a path along the baby blue chair
will make a
difference to my situation.
No. I came here for a purpose. A routine wisdom tooth removal.
Four removals
to be exact. Removal sounds so much more tidy than "pulling" and "extraction",
doesn't it? Of course it does...
So, I wait. Ten minutes early, I sit there bored listless. A
million awkward
thoughts are flooding through my brain at once. I see the nurse
in the
background, standing behind the window. Then I have a weird flashback
to
Noshahr 1991 when I had that stomach flu and we went to the third
story of
that building situated right above the restaurant owned by the
Rashty guy
who made the best mahi I'd ever tasted.
I remembered the doctor's
office, in
the middle of the busy street, third story window, they leaned
me over the
bed, my head slightly sticking out of the open window, my nostrils
taking in
the scent of sir torshi, as the shot went "Booooommm" into
my bottom and I
screamed, bringing the entire street below me to standstill.
Back
to the
here and now, American suburbia, no fish or torshi, just the
nurse in the
blue medical fatigues, standing guard. Does she think her being
on the other
side of the glass stops me from seeing the size of that organic
needle? It's
huge! Huger than humongous. I think that that's the needle they
used to put
the dog Beethoven to sleep with. I wonder whether or not it's
sterile. It
must be the Iranian in me... Then the clock strikes twelve noon. The entourage of nurses follow
the
doctor in. Typical Iranian surgeon. Rolex watch that's a little
too sparkly
for my comfort. A ring bulging out from under his plastic gloves.
Whitened
hair colored over for the millionth time with Clairol's Dark
Ash Brown. He
smiles at me and I know I am gonna be a goner.
Why are they insisting on knocking me out? So what if it takes
a few extra
shots to numb me up? Do they think I can't handle the sight
of blood? What
in the world gave them that idea...?
Then the tip of the humongo-needle
pricks my whitened skin, entering my
system uninvited as the sleep potion flows through me, even
touching my
soul. I have been told that all I will feel is darkness,
sleep, comfort.
Nothing has prepared me for what I am about to experience.
My entire life flashes before my eyes in this fog-covered
land. The grass is
greener than any bright hue I have ever layed eyes upon
and the ocean that
runs alongside it is deeper than the bluest of blues. I
look around and see
faces, they belong to the past, to the present..
Grandmother is there, holding my grandpa's arm, they stand
like soldiers,
greeting me at the gates. I smile at seeing them together
and float
onward...
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