I heard that harsh noise, that mechanical, systematic, perpetual sound of the rotary blade from the Dremel-like tool he was holding.

“This isn’t going to hurt,” he said.

Bullshit, I thought. He’d used that blade before to file my teeth down when they weren’t even.

The receptionist called the orthodontist over to ask a question, and he told me to use the blade on myself.

I couldn’t do it, but I knew I had to. I reluctantly brought the Dremel to my teeth. My hand and my face were both shaking so much that by the time I was finished, my teeth looked like the crenellated walls of an old French castle.

I left my orthodontist’s office and drove to a ski slope. An avalanche came crashing down and knocked me into the ocean beside the mountain. I felt several sharp pains on the inside of my left foot.

I pulled myself out of the water onto the icy ledge I had just fallen off of. I looked at the instep of my foot to find four six inch black needles protruding out of my foot. I reached down and slowly twisted and tugged each one until it came out.

At first the holes were small, only about two millimeters in diameter, but after a while they expanded to two inches. I could see inside my foot, but there wasn’t any blood. Instead my foot was filled with pink fluff that looked like fiberglass insulation. I was about to drive back to my orthodontist’s office to see if he would take a look at my foot and smooth out my teeth, but I woke up before I got in the car.