Free PALINDROME by Lawrence Kelter Page B

otherwise run over her
lip and down her chin. It was a pretty chin that came to a delicate
point. I focused on it and thought that one day I would use it as
some part of a face amalgam. Pardon the play on words, but I needed
some form of escape in order to cope whenever boredom was at the
max. This had been one of those times. I amused myself by picturing
this woman’s chin as part of an artistic challenge, pairing it with
someone else’s nose and yet someone else’s ears and hair. The
combination I was envisioning wasn’t coming out very well. It
looked something like Picasso’s Guernica , a juxtaposition of
unrelated facial features that struck me as comical. I giggled
inwardly before I wiped the vision from my silly little head.
    “Suction, please,” Moffet said. He had been
cleaning one of the tooth canals for at least fifteen minutes. God
only knew where he found the patience. He glanced up at me. “That’s
good.”
    I was still dealing with Allie’s one creepy
hazel eye. I couldn’t wear sunglasses in the office and had been
avoiding direct eye contact with Moffet all morning. The patient
moaned. “Did you feel that?” Moffet asked. The patient nodded.
“Lexa, can I have a fresh syringe of lidocaine, please?”
    There were no refills in my cabinet drawer.
“Be right back.” I popped up and walked down the corridor to the
supply closet. I inserted a lidocaine cartridge into a clean
syringe and grabbed a fistful of supplies to replenish my empty
drawer. I saw Doc Moffet peering through the doorway into the
corridor. He appeared to be a bit impatient. I needed to avoid eye
contact, and so I turned my head as I reentered the room. As I did,
I tripped on the door saddle and went down.
    “Jesus, Lexa, are you all right?” Moffet
jumped out of his chair to help me. He must’ve seen the hazel eye
because he winced, and I didn’t like the expression on his face.
The patient was sitting up in the chair but couldn’t speak because
of all the dental apparatus in her mouth. Moffet grabbed my arm and
put it around his shoulder. He helped me into an empty examination
room.
    “I’ll be okay. So sorry, doctor.”
    “Lexa, you’ve got—”
    I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror.
The loaded syringe I had been carrying was sticking out of my
temple, and the plunger had been depressed.
    “Hold still,” Moffet said. He pulled a
sterilized gauze pad out of one of the canisters on the counter.
“I’m going to pull it out. Try not to move.” I could feel him
putting pressure on the injection site as he withdrew the needle. I
could feel the needle being pulled out of my skin. “You’re going to
be all right, but I’m going to take you over to the hospital to get
checked out.” He took my hand and put my fingers on the sterilized
gauze pad. “Keep light pressure on this, okay?’
    I nodded. “I’m okay, Doctor. Just let me sit
down for a few moments. I’m sure it’s nothing.”
    “Yes, sit, please sit.” He helped me into the
reclining dental chair and adjusted the height so that my feet were
higher than my head. “Do you feel like you might pass out?”
    “I don’t know, I just feel a little
weird.”
    And then I guess he noticed Allie’s hazel
eye. “I’m calling an ambulance.”
    “I’m okay.”
    “Your left pupil is fully dilated. You need
to be checked by an ophthalmic specialist to make sure there’s no
damage to your eye.” I looked in the mirror. He was right; my left
pupil was fully dilated, so much so that you could barely see that
the iris was hazel and not blue. “Wait right here, Lexa, and don’t
move. I’ll go call an ambulance.” I heard him running to the front
desk and then I heard his voice on the phone. “This is Dr. Moffet
at—”
    In the middle of all the commotion, with a
patient in mid root canal and an ambulance’s siren wailing in the
distance, Darla, the receptionist walked through the door holding a
bouquet of butter-yellow roses. “My God, Lexa,” she