Tortured

 

Looking up at the strip light on the ceiling. And that big circular operating light. Glaring down. My Iraqi dentist is wearing blue rubber gloves, safety glasses and a beige coloured hijab. What are those things in her fingers? Perhaps miniature weapons of mass destruction. The ones they never found. "Open wider for me please". That gurgling siphon thing sucks excess water and saliva from my mouth quite inefficiently for I am still close to drowning as I gulp like a pelican. 

"Are you all right?" "Arrr...arr...arr". Translated that means "Beam me up Scottie!" Kayleigh, the attractive sunbed bronzed dental nurse, fusses about bringing instruments and dental paste. I hope I remembered to zip up my flyhole. The place where I  keep my fly. 

Saja drills into my skull. Grinding away like a stonemason. But I was against the post 9/11 invasion of Iraq! Don't punish me! It was Bush and Blair. Not me! Please! The torture will surely last forever. Looking up at the striplight into eternity. My mouth is one of my most intimate and private places and yet I have allowed this Islamic woman in there willingly. Not with her tongue French kissing me but with metal implements I cannot see. Aren't torturers meant to cackle with malicious joy? But she gets on with her job - the one she was trained for over several years. 

I am grateful that she managed to squeeze me in after the initial morning consultation. I stagger out feeling violated and sore but I thank Saja and Kayleigh for their service. Even on the NHS we have to pay a bit extra for dental treatment. My bank card makes the card machine bleep successfully. More cash for dentist holidays. I walk home silently praying that the treatment I have received will indeed be the solution to my oral discomfort. 

Fortunately, I was able to manage it during out time in Egypt though there were a few moments when I thought I would have to leave the river cruise to visit an Egyptian dentist. He or she would undoubtedly have held a palm out for "baksheesh"...for services rendered. It was probably the ancient Egyptians who first performed proper dentistry over 4500 years ago. I believe they got there before the Chinese.