Molar revolution

The dentist called the wisdom tooth he extracted "exotic." Made me feel special. Like I'm supposed to do a dirty dance on the chair or something.

That was a month ago. Last week, he got the other wisdom tooth and said nothing.

But he got my cell number from the records. Texted me once just to prove it. I saved his number and wrote it on the cardboard spine of my calendar.

Maybe he's still looking at the tooth, a thing as nonfunctional sitting before his eyes as it was in my mouth, ranked along with Cadmus and the gums. It's probably something in his pocket right now, in its small plastic tube. A tube transparent enough for his eyes whenever he's commuting and in a jam. Or when he's in between patients or reports or chapters of that favorite book of his that bears infinite rereading. Maybe every night he takes a look, after dinner, before he goes to sleep.

So for me, every night it's tossing and turning. Every morning, for six days now, it's my cell phone alarm and zero messages.