From a Scar Lightly
In the bathroom the light buzzed and the water was pink and the pliers were in the sink because it was Jenny's practice, on weekends, to address with whatever the junk drawer offered those problems of the body that could not afford to wait for money she did not have. One might call it self-reliance, if self-reliance did not end with holding a piece of your own skull.
The thing about pulling teeth is the root doesn't want to leave. Sure, the crown comes clean, but the root goes deep, anchored in bone that is very sincere about its job.
Which is the only sincere thing left inside me, she thought as she clamped the needle-nose pliers past the gum line, pulled, and stifled a scream.
The root gave out wearing a sleeve of her gum tissue, this pink-grey, wet, flag of flesh waving hello saying, "Pleased to meet you. I used to be the inside of your face."
In the next room her son laughed in unison with a laugh track from the TV. The way seven-year-olds laugh, with his entire diaphragm, like every joke is the funniest thing that's ever happened in the history of him having a body.
She spit into the dirt.
Gone were the pliers, the junk drawer next to the batteries and the takeout menus, and the screwdriver that didn't fit anything in the house. The house. Her son's laughter. All of it. Gone.
Table for One
The first time anyone in the harbor town was kind to Doug was the morning the autumn cold came up through the wall with its usual tar and gutted fish and something new, something like burnt sulfur, after a priest had come in on a black ship, walked up to the chapel, underlined a name twice on its door, and said, to no one in particular, "He will do."
He was told to meet Constance in the tavern. Doug had never been on a date before, so he didn't know how they were supposed to go, but he assumed this one was going to go well.
He had washed his hair and pressed it flat with both hands, but it had stood back up. He had on his best shirt, turned so the cleaner side showed. The cuffs stopped short of his wrists, which had always been too long for anything he owned.
My son's rocket never left the pad, so he started the countdown over on his fingers. He's been stuck at five since the fuse went early.