Teeth

Author's Note: This piece created by doing a guided stream of consciousness. How this works is, you gather students and have a leader that gives each person a part of speech. Someone gives the beginning sentence, you take that and run. But, not for too long, after a short period of time another person gives there word(s) based on the part of speech they had. I really enjoy this writing exercise because you never know what to expect. I worked on my idea development and staying in character.

Robert walked slowly into the dentist's office, scared and bewildered by all the ominous machinery. His whole body was shaking, teeth chattering. If this was the one fear that he had never gotten over as a child, this was it. He walked slowly keeping his hands on the wall to be sure the he did not fall right onto his face. As he made his way slowly but surely to the check - in desk, he tried to take deep breaths and remain calm. This seemed nearly impossible.

"Can I help you?" said the large secretary, unenthusiastically.
"Y-Y-Yes" said Robert, unsure if he was ready to do this, "I have an appointment with Dr. Canine."
"He'll be right with you, take a seat," she mumbled.

He crept into the waiting room, thinking he might lose his lunch while inhaling the smell. As he sat down in the chair, he noticed a plush dog in the corner and thought about the last time he was here, he had picked that very same dog up and underneath it was a puzzle. While he played with it, he was in his own little world. Then he heard his name and was brought back to reality. Still shaking he walked up to the lady and said, "I hope this doesn’t take long!"

"It should only take a few minutes dreary!" She said happily.

Like this was something to be happy about. As he sat down in the plastic covered, cold chair he noticed how colorful this experience could be. When the nurse came back in, I asked if I was going to be given a medication to help with the pain. She silently, walked out of the room and shook her head.

The next thing that I know I am in the middle of New York City, at the statue of liberty. Looking up at this gigantic statue that is standing, frozen, right in front of me. Many people as they stand in front of the statue look at the carving detail of her dress. As I stand in front of her, I notice the red flame of her torch. I am mesmerized.  Then, I am taken from that seen to a poor neighborhood, one that is dark and freighting.  There was soot on the housetops. It was a hideous and disgusting place to be!

As I was jumping back and forth between my dystopia and utopia vision of the world, I realized that it was taking a long time for them to fix my tooth. I quickly dismissed that thought in from my mind because, honestly, I was really enjoying this time.  I didn’t have to worry about being in the stinky, smelly dentist office, or working at the office. It was as if I had the imagination of a five year old.

After, what seemed to be forever, I woke up. I was covered up with a blanket and had a pillow under my head. The inside of my mouth only hurt a little, but other than that there was no sign that I had ever been in at the dentist. As I lifted my head off of the pillow, I lay my feet on the floor and jumped; WOW! was the floor cold. I was fully awake now and went to the sink to wipe off my face, my normal routine after I wake up because of how much I drool, except when I brought my the water up to my face, I noticed that there was not drool on my face. I turned and looked at the pillow and there was none on my pillow either. It was a miracle; the dentist had fixed my drooling problem! Was so happy, I ripped the bib off of my neck, grabbed a 100 dollar bill out of my pocket, slammed it on the counter and ran out of the office feeling happy that I had over - come my fear and went to the dentist