We hate fingers, tools inside our heads - they're the locus of our private selves. A quietly nervous waiting room, as if a crime had been tacitly hushed. The dentist's reassuring patter. His optics glued to glasses lenses. Yellow safety glasses. Maps stapled to the ceiling to distract the patient. Teeth everywhere on the map - buildings, gardens, dental rectangles. The piers looking like decayed roots in the sea. Injections felt deep in the jaw, a tingling on the lip. Half the tongue numbed. Even so, the tongue going where it wants, involuntarily. The high-speed multi-fluted drill. A mist of air, water and matter. Tungsten-carbide dental bur. Grinding out decayed material. A foul taste at the back of the mouth. Gutta percha rubber obturating the root canals. Glue laid down onto the excavated tooth, a sudden smell of stag beetles. Resin and silica composite. Repeat in layers. A phenylpropanedion initiator and blue beeping light polymerise the resin, curing it to concrete. Tzank cheque.
[Émail aimé, laser-print on A3, edition of 10, 1996 (nonsense-French which means something like "loved enamel").]
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