'A Story Of Molars'

In 2002, while he was running after someone in the dark, something came loose in his mouth. He stopped and spat it into his hand - a filling from his upper right second molar.



He never saw a dentist until he was close to finishing his tertiary studies in a local university (as to why not sooner - who knows? - by then it was early 2004). It was in his fifth semester that during the course of lunch on a day like any other, a small food particle was forced into the area of his then exposed pulp.


Note that the illustration shows a lower tooth, which isn't the case in this story.

That moment alone jolted his entire body. He felt an intensely sharp pain, as though a sledgehammer was driven into one focused spot of his raw nerve. And so, for a good few months, most of his chewing was done carefully (and consciously) on the left side of his mouth.

His expectations weren't met during his visit to the dentist, as Mr Dentist decided against his request / suggestion for extraction and gave a filling instead: a huge one at that, to fill the immense and problematic void (we could argue that the dentist saw a future opportunity in this decision). He carried on chewing with the good side of his mouth though, out of familiarity, as he (and a good many of us too) was a sad creature of habit.

Recently in 2006, during a pre-lunch quick-snack of hardened (oxidized) banana chips, he found that he had worn out his lower left first molar, as a relatively similar (but smaller) jolt of pain registered itself during one of his chews.



However, he nonchalantly resumed by chewing on his right.

A loud 'crack' sound was heard minutes later - he had broken his filling on the right.

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*Note: Illustrations Used - LifeART Collection Images, Copyright 1999 Lippincott, Williams & Wilkins