It was French philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer and literary critic (pause for breath) Jean-Paul Sartre who wrote that “Hell is other people.”
What did he know?
Did he ever have a toothache? Did he endure such thoroughly unwanted “company”, round-the-clock, day-in, day-out, morning, noon, and night for more days than it is possible – and certainly not desirable – to remember, because a dental receptionist could only find room for an emergency appointment sometime in the next life?
“Excuse me? This is an emergency. I can’t eat, drink, sleep, with the pain. If that isn’t an emergency, what is? Put away that dictionary. This is not `Who Wants to be a Millionaire?’. Forget the definition, I need a dentist, now, please?"
RM Block
None available, you say. Booked out for days, you say. Short-staffed, you say. Many on holidays, you say. Painkillers, you suggest. “Been there, done that, too many times. Stomach probably needs to be pumped,” I say.
“Please, just one, dentist?”, I beg. No, you say. It is not possible, you say. “Of all the dentists in all of this very large practice? Just for a few minutes, to arrange even temporary relief, pending an appointment?”
Cannot be done, you say. “Can I please die now?” I request. You do not reply.
Crossing the street afterwards, I am nearly run over by a bus. “End it now, ‘couldn’t care less,” I think, as the incensed driver bellows at me. Were it announced that Putin was about the press the nuclear button to start the war to end all wars, I would not care. Or had Trump decided to buy Ireland. Or even that Kerry looked likely to win yet another All-Ireland.
All immaterial to me.
My entire being was centred on that ever-throbbing tooth. How pain reduces us! We are as nothing before it.
“What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! In form, in moving, how express and admirable! In action how like an angel! In apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world! The paragon of animals!,” said Hamlet.
“Pshaw,..” dismissed Shakespeare.
A man with toothache is just living pain. There is nothing else.
Toothache, from Middle English toth, for `tooth’, plus ache, from Middle English aken, for `continued pain.’
