Day Ten

a.k.a. Superhero Origins

The scene: a dentist’s office. An ordinary muscular talented yet underappreciated super-genius writer who is above all else humble and modest sits in the chair. An Asian cherub, most of her unearthly beauty concealed by a mask, leans over him holding a syringe with a needle way too fucking long.
“Okay,” she says. “You’re going to feel a little sting in your cheek now.” Slight sting is dental speak for INTENSE PAIN! “Now some slight pressure on the roof of your mouth.” Pressure = INTENSE PAIN! “And you may feel something along the gum line.” He feels something all right; INTENSE PAIN! Our hero wants to scream “Oh, Jebus, the slight pressure!” but that would not seem macho and he does not want to look like a sissy boy in front of his dentist/love obsession. He tries to tell himself to enjoy the pain. It’s a stupid idea really, but it occupies his considerable mind long enough for the initial suffering to be over. The angel tells him that he bore it well. He lives for such ephemeral praise from her and would love to grab and kiss her passionately except that half of his head is numb and feels like a bag of softballs have been implanted under the skin.
Two hours later, after enduring major blood loss and a variety of tortures, our hero makes an appointment to see her again, drives home and collapses.
Side note about the blood loss – I’m not completely kidding here. The level one pain technician (unfortunately not Dr. Hot, my preferred torturer) informed me that she was getting a lot of blood while rooting around my mouth. When she pulled back, I noticed the palm of her gloved had was covered with it. Later, I saw my bib was spattered with blood as well. And that was just the cleaning.

Cut to: the following day at a pretty cool apartment. Our hero is bent double wiping down a kitchen cabinet and thinking to himself how the lingering soreness in his jaw didn’t last as much as he would have liked, and also that his health-induced headache is completely gone. Just as he thinks the only thing that can give him another headache is a blow to the head, like in the good old pre-health-trial Mountain Dew days, he stands up sharply and gets (what else) a blow to the head, in this case a very severe clout on the base of the skull by a kitchen counter that leapt into his path with no warning. He stands, rubbing the back of his head, waiting for the pain that never comes. “What manner of wizardry is this?” he says to nobody, glad that he finally got to use that line but already haunted by doubts of whether or not he should have said “sorcery” instead. Then the great magnet reveals the truth to him. He is no longer merely a mild-mannered beer-fueled totally metal literary psychopath. He has become something else, something more. He has become…Blow to the Head Dude.

BHD vows to use his newfound powers for good, to stop runaway trains with his face, to pound villains and telemarketers with his forehead until they beg for mercy, and to have a romantic relationship with his dentist. Either that, or he swears to drink beer and watch an Evil Dead marathon tonight. Whatever.

* * * * *

In truth, I did bang my head yesterday and yet suffered almost no pain. I think the combination of eight days of headache and two hours of dental work desensitized my noggin. My head is now impervious to everything - headache, dental surgery, blunt-force trauma, rational thinking, hangover, you name it.

This is the first day since beginning my experiment that I actually feel good. My energy levels are moderate but consistent, and my brain is fully functional (whatever that means). If this holds, I may make some of these changes permanent.