Novocaine

A curious thing indeed, the feeling of numbness.

It was exactly how I'd expected, receiving the shot of Novocaine.  Perhaps a bit more tingly?  But still every bit as foreign as say the limb of another person or a lump of wet clay.  Not connected to myself, alienated, everything becomes foreign and even seems to be dead weight.

I wondered, while the needle pierced through the lower right side of my inner cheek, if this might be what standing on the precipice of death feels like, teetering on the edge with a cruel but careful wind upon one's back, beckoning them forward.

A quick pinch... perhaps a lingering pinch that refuses to fade no matter how many times the dentist asks, "Does it still hurt?"

And then it begins the slow descend into the numbness.  The affected limb begins to fall apart in my consciousness - in this case my tongue - to fall into disconnected bits of tissue, tingling like sentient magnets attempting to find each other.  And then they are gone and I am left with a foreign something in my mouth which it pleases me to test with a cautious bite.

Is this how death settles into our chest over time?  Invited inside by the dull aches which we have allowed to normalize over the years?  Perhaps I have no need to fear it as I have already served Death tea and cakes and beckoned it to raise its delicate feet upon my new ottoman to rest inside my popping knee and my weary lungs...

I believe it is the cessation of breath that has inspired the most terror in me despite that dream where I floated among the blushing cherry blossoms and proclaimed that this was a perfect place to die.  The dotted branches waved gently at me and wrapped around my body like a floral womb.  Perhaps it is the same with one's last breath; pink heaving walls that allow one last glorious burst of wind to rush through its blood-rich branches before closing forever, sheltering the molecules too weak to flee.

And then numbness drapes its black warm form across the heaving pink walls and slows their movement, dulling the drifting pain which is - by now - a faint idea to nerves which are - by now - forgetting to fire.

What need have I to fear pain that will be gone after a brief shock?

And so it was in this way, with these morbid thoughts, that I managed to ready myself for the threatening drill, which hastened toward my prepared tooth and began to thrust its way into the enamel-shielded belly, opening it fully and readying it to be filled.