The Dentist

It started as just a passing thought. Everyone knows what teeth are for, she thought, but do they realize what it means to have them.

It began as a subtle observation “We’re just like animals”, but soon it became “My God, we’re just animals” and eventually “We’re a bunch of disgusting animals.”

“I didn’t sign up to be a veterinarian. I can’t stand looking at these animals all day long. The bleeding, the decay, the stench. How disgusting that we have these hardened mineral deposits in our mouth, used to break down other organisms, suck out the nutrients, and pass the rest out as… Oh, God it’s sickening.”

She found herself looking in the mirror differently, as if she wasn’t human but instead an alien observing a new species for the first time. How strange it suddenly seemed that there was a nose in the middle of her face, and a slimy cavity below it. She had always thought of eyes as beautiful, the windows to the soul, but somehow only now did she even realize that eyeballs were in fact balls, glassy orbs floating in mucous, packed in meat, protected by calcium. When she looked at people she could no longer see their eyes without seeing the entire sphere that the skin is supposed to hide.

She soon found herself carefully examining every movement of every one of her body parts. At first she was able to leave it at the office. Next thing she knew she was on the sidewalk frightened at this herd of animals moving towards her, around her, engulfing her. “They’re everywhere, big stupid unaware animals. How did this happen? I didn’t want to see any of this. Is this is the price we pay to know? To see the world as it truly is?”