#fridayflash - Desperate Times....

"Last one" Christina mumbled out loud as she dropped the red spattered white pearl into the sink. She leaned in to admire her handiwork in the mirror.


She smiled a toothless grin and ran her tongue over the now empty sockets where her teeth used to be. So soft and yielding was the flesh under her tongue. Like raw chicken that had been pounded with a mallet but redder and oh so bloody.

She looked down into the sink and started to count. 29, 30, 31.

31, no 32 pearly whites. Some of them almost lost in the splatters of blood that coated the bottom and sides of the sink. She picked them up one by one and counted one more time. Then tossed them in the trash. She turned to the sink again and picked up the pliers and ran hot water over them to clean them up. With the water still running she used her hand to swirl it up the sides and then down the drain.

As she wiped the pliers and the sink dry she gazed in the mirror at her now toothless face and was startled by the scream in her head.

Christina sat bolt upright in bed. Sweat pouring down her face, eyes wide, heart racing as she remembered seeing her own toothless reflection in her dream.

Damn this tooth hurt. Six days. Six days of agony that no amount of pain killer and types of antibiotics was able to relieve. Six days of feeling she could not last one more moment without losing her sanity. She climbed out of bed and stumbled into the bathroom and popped 2 more T3’s into her mouth along with 2 Gravol to keep herself from throwing up once the T3’s hit her stomach. Crawling back into bed she started to cry. She rolled herself up into a ball, her knees drawn tightly against her chest and rocked. Her mind drifted to her dream again and the pliers in the tool chest in the closet.