Sounds and Teeth

I had a dream last night. In my dream, my uncle Albert, whom I loved very much and who died last year, was sitting in a dentist’s chair. I was the dentist. Normally, I’m a bartender.

“Doctor, I held out as long as I could. I resisted until I was down to a single tooth. You know me; you pulled all my teeth. I fought it. Look at how much weight I’ve lost. I can barely eat anything properly. Mostly, I have soup and mashed potatoes. Sometimes, when I really push myself, I eat hamburger meat.”

The old man’s voice echoed inside his mouth because it no longer hit his teeth when he spoke. The sound came out through a larger opening than usual, traveled through a larger cavity after leaving his throat, and when it finally emerged, it sounded as though it were echoing.

Maybe it only seemed that way to the dentist because he hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before. It had been unusually hot that night, and no matter what he did, he couldn’t fall asleep. He had tossed and turned all night.

“I even make the hamburger meat look like it’s already been chewed before I eat it. I mash it up really well and turn it into a puree. There’s no such thing as chewing for me anymore. My mouth only serves the function of swallowing now. It’s been almost six months since I last chewed anything. I miss chewing, Doctor. I miss moving food from one side of my mouth to the other, trying to get the meat stuck between my teeth out with my tongue.”

The dentist was certain of it now. The man’s voice really did sound as though it were echoing. It wasn’t some kind of perceptual distortion caused by lack of sleep; his voice genuinely sounded as though it were echoing inside an empty room. Just slightly. Not much. Like the echo inside a small, newly rented real estate office that hadn’t been filled with furniture yet.

“Mr. Albert, I’ve made dentures for you exactly seven times. You use them for two days and throw them away. It makes no sense. On top of that, you never take care of your teeth. In the end, I have no choice but to pull them. Normally, I don’t like extracting teeth from an otherwise empty mouth. I don’t like pulling one out of three remaining teeth. Extracting a tooth with nothing supporting it on either side gives me the creeps. But I like you, so I pulled your teeth.”

Indeed, old Albert had this strange stubborn streak. He had embarked on his dentures adventure at his daughter’s insistence, but whenever she wasn’t around, he never wore them. And then the cycle would continue. Another one of Albert’s teeth would be pulled, leaving him with one fewer tooth, and he would have to get a new set of dentures made for himself. And every time, the fit of his existing dentures would somehow be thrown off. For some reason, they couldn’t be repaired or adjusted.

“Wait, I’m not finished yet. Doctor, is it possible for a person’s only remaining tooth to hurt? Just one tooth. And this tooth isn’t even being put under any strain. It’s constantly in contact with soft food and never has to chew anything. Like a spoiled child living off his father’s money, this tooth just lies there, doing absolutely nothing, living its happy little life without ever being asked to do any work. Now I’m asking you, Doctor: isn’t this tooth’s behavior a betrayal? Isn’t it a betrayal of me?”

The dentist was now completely certain. The situation had become clear in his mind. The old man’s voice sounded as though it had an echo. Or maybe it was something else; he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. There was something different about his voice. Like a different frequency. It was as though he were speaking with two voices at once, an echo with the second voice arriving a few milliseconds later.

No, this wasn’t an echo. “Echo” wasn’t the right word to describe the sound. On the other hand, there didn’t seem to be a second voice either. For a moment, while trying to figure out what exactly was different about the sound, the dentist had thought there might be, but there was no such thing.

“It hurts so much, Doctor. Let’s pull this one too and get it over with. I can’t take it anymore. There’s nothing in this life that belongs to me. My daughter takes care of me. She provides everything I need. I told myself, at least my teeth should belong to me. But no, that didn’t work either. What can you do? I guess ’ll leave this world without owning anything.”

The dentist was left speechless. Something was happening, but he couldn’t understand it. There was something terribly wrong with the sound. He couldn’t even answer the man. The more he listened to the voice, the more consumed he became by the urge to figure out what was wrong with it. It wasn’t an echo, it wasn’t a delay, and it wasn’t a voice that was louder or weaker than before. What was wrong with this voice?

“Jason? Are you going to pull this tooth, or should I just pass out from the toothache?”

“Sorry, Albert. Let me take a look. Maybe we can save it.”

“Same old story. Don’t bother. Just pull it. There’s only one left anyway. What are you going to fix? Pull it. I don’t want it.”

“But you cared about your last tooth so much. Shouldn’t we at least take a look?”

“I don’t want a tooth that betrays me this badly after I’ve treated it so well. Pull it.”

The dentist asked the old man to open his mouth and began examining the tooth. He didn’t say a word; stepped back and started preparing his instruments. He was moving quite slowly.

“You finally got suspicious, Jason. You finally got suspicious, idiot. That whole thing about at least having my teeth belong to me was a lie. I made up. I saw that you were getting suspicious, so I just made something up. And you fell for it immediately. You’re such an emotional man, Doctor.”

Jason turned around. He looked at the old man with furrowed brows and a confused expression.

“Don’t look at me like that. It’s the same voice, but you didn’t notice. There’s been no change in the voice. I’ve told my daughter about it dozens of times. But no. I’m just old. I’m senile. That’s why it seemed that way to me.”

Jason was a little relieved. At least the reason for the strange voice was going to be explained. He ignored the old man’s insult. Besides, whenever the old man spoke in that voice, Jason immediately found himself lost in thought. He couldn’t focus on what was being said. He heard it, he understood it, but he couldn’t form any thoughts about what was being said.

“I’m sorry, Doctor. I have a toothache, and I’m tense. But come on, Doctor. You’re a doctor. Didn’t you ever suspect that something might be going on in this man’s mouth? I keep coming to you to have my teeth pulled. You never checked to see if there was some disease, if something was wrong with my mouth, nothing. You just pulled my teeth one after another. Old age, right? Come on, Doctor. We’re all going to get old. I mean, don’t you ever suspect that something might be wrong? Didn’t you take the Hippocratic Oath? Is this ethical behavior?”

Jason’s head was thoroughly confused now. The old man was right. He had never suspected that there was some kind of disease in his mouth; he had blamed everything on old age. It wasn’t ethical. He felt bad about himself. His mind, simultaneously questioning his own ethics and trying to figure out what was strange about the voice, was under too much strain.

“If the voice is the same, then how come I never noticed it before?” he said half-heartedly.

“If you pull my tooth, I’ll tell you everything.”

The following evening, they met at a cafe. Even though it was already dark, it was still very hot, and Jason hadn’t been able to sleep again the night before, both because of his thoughts and because of the heat. He had pulled the old man’s tooth, just as he had wanted. But he hadn’t been able to hear the story. The old man had made an appointment for that evening. He had said:

“Okay, good. Now I don’t want to use my mouth for a while. I’ll tell you what’s going on, but give me a little time. Let me go home and enjoy being toothless for a while. Anyway, stop, look, you’re making me talk again. Let’s meet tomorrow evening.”

The old man took a sip of his coffee. He looked pleased with himself. He closed his eyes and smacked his lips. Then took another sip and made a sound as though he were enjoying it. Since his mouth was closed, the sound seemed a little more normal to Jason, but there was still something strange about it.

“Now, Jason, do foods or drinks necessarily have to be what damages a tooth? Not taking care of your teeth, drinking a lot of coffee and smoking, I don’t know, fizzy drinks, eating too much sugar… those things are bad for your teeth too, right?”

“It depends, but yes, generally speaking, we can say that.”

“What about sound? Can sound damage a tooth?”

“I don’t think so.”

“My voice does. It is. How do you think my teeth got this weak so quickly? How else could it be?”

“I don’t know. There could be dozens of reasons, but the voice can’t have anything to do with it.”

“Why not? Sound is a frequency. We know that very loud sounds can shatter glass. But can a sound break glass without being loud? A sound with a different frequency, for example? Does it have to be the volume that makes the difference?”

“What do I know, Albert? Am I a scientist? I don’t know. Let’s assume it can. So what?”

“I believe my voice can interact with certain materials. I’ve tried so many things, so many. I talked to the table, the chair, everything in the house, for long periods of time, and checked to see if they were damaged. No. My voice only damages my teeth.”

“That’s quite a solid conspiracy theory, honestly.”

“I won’t have to live with the fear of it anymore. Perfect. Why do you think I don’t use dentures? If my voice can do this to my own teeth, who knows what it would do to dentures. Ah, Jason, you have no idea. You have no idea how scared I am, how worried I am, every time I speak, every time I laugh, every time I whisper.”

“Real teeth and dentures are made of different materials.”

“I’m sorry for pretending to love the only tooth I had left, Doctor.”

“Honestly, I believe you, Albert. I like you, you know that. I don’t just pull everyone’s teeth like that. I told you. I’d do everything I could to save that tooth. But I like you. If you ask me to do something, I’ll do it. I pulled your teeth simply because you wanted me to. Now, please, don’t disappoint me either. Come on, let’s make you one last set of dentures. I promise, real teeth and dentures are made of different materials. Your voice won’t affect the dentures. At least let’s give it a try, okay?”

The old man asked the waiter for the bill, and when it arrived, he paid by card. A very long receipt came out of the card machine. It read:

‘’But what was the strange thing about his voice? Jason would never figure it out. His voice sounded normal now. Jason hadn’t understood it. He didn’t want to understand it either. He was disgusted with himself for never suspecting that there was something wrong with the old man’s mouth. He would punish himself. He would spend the rest of his life wondering why Albert’s voice had sounded that way that day, and that would be his punishment. A curiosity that would never be satisfied. A doubt that would eat away at him. Because there was no way it could have been such a coincidence. The fact that Jason had found Albert’s voice so strange, and Albert’s claim that his voice was making his teeth fall out, couldn’t possibly have lined up like that by chance. That wasn’t possible in real life. There had to be a reason, and that reason was just sitting there, existing on its own. Jason would never reach it.’’

When I woke up, I was still clutching my Uncle Albert’s dentures tightly in my left hand.