“This, you gonna feel a little pinch.”
Cowed and lying on that dental chair with that rubbery smell waiting and watching anxiously, today my nose is repulsive enough, none of these God-awful smell seems easy. This thick smell of death clamored and cringed me right at the moment I throw myself into the clinic, pitted all my senses against that stark hospital white, and desperately, oozing out all those hopelessness…
In this God awful, and slanting and utterly aching vision commanding from that exposed body in that reclining chair, while all the dental picks and drills shining and dangling mercilessly over my head, I sighed. Hopelessly, everything is coerced and succumbed into siding with them, all with an attitude of take-no-prisoners. Same time I realized I only can discern that puny pocket of and yellowish and fading light. With all my might, I think I saw my mouth, with a glaring light pointing straight at me, occasionally Dr. Shah, this Indian doctor with mouth mask flash in my sight, a silhouette of him bursted in and out. And as is instructed, my mouth is to open wide, painfully jarring all in hope of having that a bit of mercy in return; so wide, I am afraid every oxygen will swallow me this time as I can literally feel them bursting into my mouth, my throat…
As beads of sweat seep through my cloth for that heaving struggle, never before a thickest needle is flashed and pointed straight at me. But I couldn’t scream since my mouth is oddly ajar. As an alternative, I puzzled together that low and dejected groan as if the last judgment is here and I am doomed for eternal suffering.
Maybe the needle is made to be thick enough to prevent accidents after patients are reduced to such primal state while injecting the anesthesia. As the needle is pierced into my gum, a sharp pain flared all over my body, and it then paused and looked around to pioneer a path that lasts for a moment that’s suffice for a comfortable nap I say. In this eternity somehow I forgot the pain instead of being annoyed by such pricks of flesh. Again I released that lowest and longest groan.
In that half light of the clinic, I see dental picks in and out of my mouth all of while I release those longest grunt like a dying pig, fearlessly stabbing into my teeth, my gum, stab where it hurts.
Luckily it then switched to dental drills, those drills, loud enough to drawn out my every reasoning. I don’t think there was such a toothache to require such a massive effort, but now all is confronted with that very anxiety and fear, occupied in this splinter of hallucination.
After a long while, as my dentist stepped away, finally gave me the chance for an inhalation.
I felt my grip on the pads on the armrest; same time I felt my sweat and my rage and my pain… all the while the smell of death and hospital white creeping back into me…
“Excessive bleeding, there is no way to go further, let him take some Hydrogen Peroxide before coming back.”
When returning back, this time with an older doctor, he checked me like a used car,
As I get kicked out of the clinic, I’m finally embraced by a gulf of cool and fresh air, as I confirmed with my watch to be late, I gathered all my strength, dragging myself, staggering and trudging home via the subway. On my long walk to the subway station, a befuddled feeling came to my eyes and stomach when I realized the anesthesia is still well alive inside my body. Though I blushed off like a pointless penny.
As I was riding the night train, all the details magnified and are pierced and seared into my eyeballs, that same subway benches with that different shades of orange, today those insane colors scream out from their utmost inner lungs, that thickest windows, that heavy shade just beyond with traces of burnt orange, with a distant and excruciating and unbearable and smoky and shrieking and crackle and screeching of the subway and its track, as an inferno is about to reveal itself just the beyond of the subway divide, and all those feeling somewhat annoyed passengers scatter in the train…
“Maybe a powernap can get rid of that anesthesia.”
As I fall asleep, abruptly my tense body is awaked by an old lady sitting next to me.
As I’m trying to get a full view of the lady, next stop announcement loudly broadcasted in the radio, throw my logic completely off the track. And my confusion is compounded further by the sudden rush of riders.
“Where the hell they come from?”
Then I caught the lady smiling at me, and I cannot not to notice her not-matching-perfect outfit as I turn around my face toward her direction. A pink shirt with a dark blue skirt, a dress might not invoke her appropriate age.
All the while the brain is moved, jiggled around inside the skull.
“Tap, tap, tap.”
As the train is racing furiously, a man with his back facing me, not loud, but firmly, tapping that subway door, seems is inquiring to enter into the other side of silence, to dive into that fire.
“Tap, tap, tap.”
I swear to God, I think I saw something when he turned around peeked at me.
“I need to get rid of that anesthesia.”
I suddenly realized I’m running out of time as I glanced nervously at my watch, as I looked at those insane benches, and those thickest windows, and that ghostly white light flushing out its dull illumination, and that moving train, and that bleak tunnel…
Though quickly the urge is jostle down by a violent revolt of the subway car.
“All will look different in the sun.”
As I shut my eyes, pretending going to deep sleep against this hateful silence.
On my final project, i intend to simplify my process of writing, just writing what i see, of course the whole course of seeing practically includes every sense. I know the power of writing is in its simplicity, and how you translate that simplicity, counts everything
In this light, I try to stay away any technical terms that can confuse people, but come on, we are in 21st century now, some is inevitable.
This whole experience, a dental visit and a subway ride was indeed fascinating to me, i tried to manipulate as little as i can, i tried to stay away from excessive imagination, which makes a writing very hard, but i chose subway ride, main reason is subway is one of the best place to provoke one’s imagination, a little catch 22 here.
I know in that sense, i’m very selfish, before i write, i made sure i own the whole experience, every time i do that, it makes that much easier to write. I hope i’m still following teacher’s blue print for my cover letter, if this is multiple choices, I’d choose vivid writing, appeals to all senses…
I’m a very simple man, i don’t recall a particular tool I used, I just proof read, proof read, and proof read some more, and this tool worked out wonderfully.
The last paragraph, which is 2 sentences, I don’t recall borrowing anything from other readings this time except those sentences, though a few years ago, i did churn out a writing about after a guy went into subway, he saw all sorts of things. So this is another reason i purposely tried to get away from that, like a complete different ending from that one, though there is absolutely no way to get away from this ghost of my first subway writing when I write. So that ghost hovered on my shoulder when I wrote this one.
And “All will look deferent is the sun,” i read long time ago, it’s in my quote book, though i tried to go back to find the whole thing, whom said, impossible my quote book is long now. And the word “hateful,” i remember read an article, very likely NY Times, it says,”…as hateful as the morning mist of Hutson river,” might not be in that order. From that moment on, that quote doesn’t need a quote book, it has being stuck in my head ever since, so in that incidence, i picked out just the word “hateful.” And in the middle, “to dive into the fire,” is from William Shakespeare’s Tempest. Words are power. I know.
Hi Leo, I am very intrigued by this piece.
To start, let me just say that I strongly recommend that you take this piece to the writing center. There are many moments of translation here–or at least it seems that way. You’re not composing in English, but perhaps in another language that you’re translating into English. This leads to some hard-to-read English that only detracts the reader from the power of your images and the intense mood you set here. An intensive session, one-on-one at the writing center, will help you bring out your meaning and effect more.
Now let me talk about mood: this is the most striking element of your draft, in my view. I find it to be remarkably intense, as I say above. It’s funny how in your cover letter you say you just wanted to stick to the basics here, to keep it simple and direct, to describe what you saw and experienced. In a way, you do just that; there’s a lot of attention to specific detail, as in the attention to smells in the first paragraph and focus on light in the second. Great appeals to the senses here! But in another way, you push on notions of simplicity by being quite hyperbolic. That is, you exaggerate elements of both the scene and your experience, making this anything but a simple or direct act of description. When you describe feeling like you’re drowning in oxygen because your mouth is open so wide, howling as if it’s the last judgement or like a dying pig, hallucinating on the subway ride home, etc. this all seems (at least a little but probably a little more than just a little) exaggerated. Don’t get me wrong: I like it. I think it works. Pain is nothing if not intense and intensely personal. We feel very alone in our pain, and in our minds, it multiplies.
I think these last lines I write above on pain and how it works on us–inside our minds and on our emotions more than on our physical bodies–is a theme for you. I’d like to see you explore it’s potential for your essay as you revise. What does it mean to be human and to have to feel pain? It is, as I say, a very intimate and lonely business, this pain. But your trip on the subway makes it also social (in a sort of anti-social way, insofar as subways contain crowds of people pressed together but trying not to get too close) On the train, you’re suddenly a public person in pain (and doped up). People are witness to your pain. This juxtaposition of the loneliness of suffering with its potentially public applications is VERY interesting. What can you make of it?
An interesting structuring device that you might try would be to clearly divide this essay into two sections, one at the clinic and one on the train. Perhaps give each section a subtitle, to emphasize their separation (of course, they remain connected by being in the same essay). For your overarching theme: think about pain and what it means to us and how it shapes us an dour experiences (physically, but also emotionally and mentally). But also consider the sub-themes of the individual/lonely experience of pain vs. the public/shared experience. So, you’ve got pain and its role in the human experience; and you’ve got private/lonely in tension with public/shared/ Then think about what message you might want to emphasize, within these themes, about your pain story.
I LOVE this sentence: “I don’t think there was such a toothache to require such a massive effort, but now all is confronted with that very anxiety and fear, occupied in this splinter of hallucination.” The splinter of hallucination is a perfect image for anesthesia and fear or pain and everything you’re writing about here. I also like the idea that there couldn’t have been a need (a toothache) that could provoke this massive effort. It’s vivid and powerful writing.
I’m excited about the potential of this piece, Leo. I think it’s the most immediate and personal piece you’ve written so far this semester, and therefore has the potential for the greatest impact. Good luck revising!
Hey Leo,
I like your topic, going to the dreaded dentist/doctor. It’s something that we all have to go through, and I think you bring out that agony very well in your piece.
I like the overall pace of your story and how it seems to transition effortlessly from the office to the subway. I also like the vivid language you use, showing and not really telling. My favorite sentence “Again I released that lowest and longest groan as my only defense.” I think this sentence really captures the powerlessness we ALL feel when we go to the doctor, being subject to someone who can manipulate us at their whim. It furthermore has a musical quality to it because of the use of the word “groan”. I also love how you express your mind state and analyzing and thinking processes along the way in the piece.
That said, I think it would be better for your piece if you cut some of the overdescription of how you feel out. I think you have done more than enough to make the reader feel the agony you feel and at times it seems as if you are overly dramatic about the experience. If you cut out the overdescription of the agony, it’ll make the agony stand out even more.
All in all, good piece, Leo!