Day ten. This is the end, my friend.
January 10. The Last Page, by Jonathan Miles
Your prompt for today:
Write the ending to your story. By this I don’t mean your physical end, your deathbed scene, no—that’s creepy. Rather, try to imagine the moment at which the plot threads of your life are tied together, when the arc of your story resolves. Where will you be and who will be with you? What dreams will you have realized? What mysteries might you finally have solved? What will you deem your greatest achievements? And what do you fear might still be left undone or unsaid (because, remember, all great endings are slightly ambiguous)? Write the last page of your story, the pebble in the pond silt. And then after, with God’s grace, start swimming.
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In education, they call this backwards design. Begin with the endpoint in mind. Identify all the disparate threads and figure out how to weave them together to form a tidy knot at the end. Life doesn't always work like that, like an episode of Seinfeld, a cast of characters converging in one hilarious scenario. But it could, right?
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"Ahhh."
The dentist grabbed the tip of her tongue with a piece of gauze, yanking it side to side, then ran his gloved fingers over her gums. He pulled her lips back and nodded approvingly. "Beautiful teeth," the dentist murmured as he prodded an old filling with a metal probe.
"Hank oo," the patient managed, involuntarily squirting a stream of saliva onto the dentist's goggles. 'Ha-ee."
The dentist, fluent in the mouth-full-of-fingers dialect, nodded in acknowledgement of the thank you and sorry. "Don't worry, happens all the time."
He spun in his chair to face the computer, and scanned through the x-rays transferred from the patient's previous dental practice. "So Katie, you're a new patient today but I could swear I know you from somewhere. Are you and your husband club members?"
"As in country club? Hah, no way. I mean, no offense. That's just, ah, too rich for our blood. Not our scene. Do you have kids? Maybe I taught them?" Katie thought she knew damn well why she seemed familiar to him, but she wanted to watch him grope for the answer.
"Nah, never married, no kids, that's not it." He pulled his mask down and grinned, revealing prominent buck teeth.
Could he possibly recognize me after all these years? Maybe not, I mean, different last name, it's been like, what, 30 years since middle school? But I'd know those buck teeth anywhere. What kind of dentist...whatever, who cares.
"I got it! You wrote that book! That hilarious book."
"Oh, wow, thank you. Yeah, guilty as charged, that's me." He can read? I'm shocked. I mean, he is a dentist, but still. Who would have seen that coming?
"Yeah, I'm not a big reader, but I was dating this woman, and she couldn't stop raving about it, so I had to see what the deal was. Your stories about growing up, oh my god. So funny."
He's read the book and still doesn't know? Jesus he's in it! Names changed for privacy, yadda yadda, but come on dude, have a little self awareness. For years, I thought of this jabroni every time I put my retainer in at night...
"Well, I guess I'll be seeing you in another 6 months. Thanks...for everything."
Thanks for the memories. Thanks to you, thanks to all of them. Katie got in her car cackled until her sides ached. She pulled out her phone and texted her mom:
Oh
My
God
You will never in a million years guess who COMPLIMENTED my teeth today...
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