I had a dream that all my teeth fell out.
I hadn’t just awoken from it, being that I could never sleep on trains, nor did I dream it last night. It’s some odd thing that made its way to the forefront of my mind as I sat with my best friend, on the railroad home, a seat occupied by our bags making space between us. Her head lulled back and tapped softly against the window, a suggestion of an Adam’s apple bobbing in her exposed neck. She could always sleep anywhere.
It was times like these that made me wonder why we were still here. The morning after the dream, I hardly remembered a thing. There were only blurry frames of red and white, but I woke with a foul mood and maintained it for the rest of the day. As my oldest friendship sat two seats away with eyes blind to me, bitterness swam in my mouth and those blurry frames came back into focus.
Each tooth fell out until I ran my tongue over the hollows in my gums where the rotted things once filled.
She used to lean on my shoulder when she slept.
I tried to keep them in, but they seemed to come out by force. I felt as though my mouth was being filled with more and more loose teeth as each detached from me, stretching my skin until I burst, coughing and spitting everything out in a cascade from my tired lips. My incisors were the last to hit the ground, dangling over the pile of teeth I was leaning over. I thought they might’ve clung onto me forever if I hadn’t wiped them away with my hand like a food smear.
Five minutes became two away from my stop. My friend was still asleep, and I reached to wake her, so when the train doors opened to the station after mine, she’d exit them.
My fingers were cold and dry against her forearm when I expected warmth. She hadn’t stirred.
The thought of abandoning my teeth there on the concrete ground revolted me. I could breathe. I could feel the air filling my hollow mouth and scratching the back of my throat, inducing another fit of coughs.
I considered jolting her to consciousness by the shoulders or calling her name, but those suddenly felt unbearable.
The train drew into the station, and by then I had retracted my arm and slung my bag over my shoulder. As we decelerated, she twitched and snuffled, very much asleep. People were beginning to stand and shuffle towards the doors, rustling me about, but she remained undisturbed in her bubble.
I lifted a molar to eye-level. It was so rotted; there was no white left to blind myself. I could easily regret the poor dental hygiene and dietary decisions that got it to this point, but what could I do? The molar hit the ground without a sound.
I gave her one last look as the doors slid open and the crowd oozed out of the train’s metallic body. The girl I had known before I knew how to spell my name, now just a passenger who will miss her stop. She’d wake up as the sliding doors begin to close. Her eyes would widen in panic and adrenaline as she dashes towards the shrinking gap then stumble backwards, dazed, when the doors click shut. Her bag would still be on the seat.
I clamped my hollow mouth shut and stepped out onto the platform.
