by Kim Doyle
I always think of Bill Murray, the masochistic
dental patient in Little Shop of Horrors when
I visit my dentist. Alternatively, it’s Laurence Olivier
asking repeatedly: “Is it safe?…Is it safe?” of Dustin Hoffman,
as he works on the last root nerve of the Marathon Man.
Olivier’s evil Nazi verve is not shown by my practitioner, Dr. Needleman,
but I do feel that mixture of pleasure and pain as he probes
around my gums. I do sums in my head to ease the stress but
I confess; it hurts sooooo good.
This pleasure/pain has now been replaced by panic. It used to be
you’d swallow and spit to get rid of the shit gathering in your mouth.
Now a high speed stream of water irrigates, flagellates, and fills up my
orifice so fast that I scream: “I’m being water boarded.” The suction does
not suck fast enough to stop me from feeling I am drowning. I think of those poor
saps at Guantanamo, frowning over their Koran, or rendered somewhere nasty;
water cascading over their face.
It remains a national disgrace. I know Prick Cheney has a pace maker and I hope,
to say the least, he has ugly, rotting teeth.
You can spit now, Dick.
Kim Doyle is a writer of poems, essays and micro fiction and memoirs. She believes war criminals should be brought to justice. She pays her taxes and has not been nominated to be Secretary of anything.
Editor’s Note: Ask Congress to find out how the U.S. became a nation that tortures.
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