Ben Boa and the COVID Dentist

Ben was sick and tired of all this COVID nonsense. Let people go out and fend for themselves, he thought. If you do the right thing, you will be O.K. If not, I guess you’re gonna get sick.

His tooth was killing him, and he was stuck in the COVID capital of Australia, Melbourne. The city had been in lockdown longer than anywhere else in the world. He was sick of it.

Melbourne had changed so much since he was here last. It seemed, well, different; he couldn’t explain it. It felt like a scene from Mad Max. People wore masks. The government tracked phone movements. Everyone rushed home before curfew.

It was like the COVID gremlins only came out after dark. Not only do they eat children, but adults, too. He was hoping to get in a game or two of footy, but alas, they had all moved to the state of pineapple-eaters up north or to any of the other states, everywhere except Victoria.

"Uhhh! Ughhh!" Ben’s tooth twitched again as he stretched to open the door. He had found a dentist who advertised ‘best COVID practices around.' Ben didn’t like dentists at the best of times, but he had to do something about his tooth.

The waiting room had curtains from the 60s. The furniture was like you would see at a roadside collection these days. The carpet, one of those wavy carpets that, if you looked at it too long, made you feel seasick, all made him doubt his sanity. Just as he was about to turn back to the door, he heard a voice that sounded like Darth Vader on steroids.

"H-aroo-ow. Misser Diamond? Yohnny Diamond?" came a voice out of nowhere. Ben (sorry, John Diamond under his new alias) nearly dropped his lunch!

Before him stood something that resembled the first man on the moon: a Tyvec coverall, ventilator mask, gloves, and boots. All he could hear was "shhhh, haaahh, shhhh, haaahh," as the man (he assumed it was a man underneath all of that get-up) tried to breathe through the mask.

This guy didn’t just have a mask; this was a full-on ventilator like the ones you’ve seen in Breaking Bad. And the gloves, they were thicker than the soles on his shoes. Ben shuddered at the thought of this guy trying to squeeze those suckers into his mouth.

‘Harroo I am Doctor Toof, Toof Hurty. You wanna me fix your toof?’

“It’s killing me,” said Ben as Hurty shot a stream of disinfectant into the air.

“Have got be velly careful wiv this virus,” he replied. Squirt, squirt. “This way.”

Hurty led Ben down a short corridor, squirting his disinfectant every few steps. Ben kept getting the backwash. Before he got to the surgery, he felt like he'd been dunked in a bath of chlorine Domestos.

It was dark and very dreary-looking, unlike the bright, clean white room he imagined. The more he thought about it, the more it looked like some torture chamber or an S&M dungeon (whatever they look like)!

Clearly, the guy was trying to save on electricity, and then bam!

Talk about lights, action. Hurty must have switched on the lights and the surgery lit up like the MCG arena at night. You could hear it humming to capacity. "Shit down,” commanded Hurty, drenching the retired Qantas airline seat with more disinfectant.

“You wannn pay now or rater?” asked Hurty through his mask. The words echoed in Bens’ brain pay, pay, now!

“Rater, uh later,” replied Ben with Hurty's hands in his mouth.

“I do all shurgery remotely’” explained Hurty through his ventilator.

“Shoshial distancing,” he added.

“If I come too close, alarm goes off.” Hurty demonstrated by taking steps, well shuffles really, towards Ben. Sure enough, a piercing alarm went off until Hurty moved back. “Pretty good, hey?” he added.

Ben was already ahead of him. “How are you going to fix my tooth if you can’t come near me?”

“Uhhh, simple," said Hurty. “I do all things remotely. I have a state-of-the-art Chinese drone. COVID-friendly, yes?”

Hurty grabbed an Xbox controller. From the back of the surgery, a buzzing sound started. "Bzzzzzzz, bzzzzzzz."

Ben thought it was a fly, but then reconsidered. No fly in it's right mind would live here.

“Bzzzzzzzz, bzzzzzzz,” the noise got closer to Ben, he felt the draft near his right ear, then a ZZZZZZZZZ as this yellow drone flashed past his eye, spun around, and positioned itself right in front of Ben’s mouth. Oh my God, thought Ben, this is not going to end well. The damn thing has eyes!

‘When I tell you, yower your flace mask,” commanded Hurty as he shuffled to the left to get a better view. A camera lens zoomed down to about a foot from Ben’s nose. Ben couldn’t take it. He shut his eyes, as the ‘Bzzzzzzzz’ moved around his face.

“Now,” said Hurty. “Which toof needs to come out?”

‘It’s this one here,” said Ben pointing to his back tooth.

‘Where?” inquired Hurty.

“Th---i----s o—n—e he—re-r,” replied Ben with a face full of fingers.

“Oh,” said Hurty “velly red, looks velly sore. Put mask back on,” as a deep mist of disinfectant sprayed down from the ceiling.

‘No shit, Sherlock!’ thought Ben. Sore is an understatement!

The drone flew left and then took off toward the back of the room.

“Toof needs to be filled or come out,” explained Hurty. Ben was starting to doubt this guy's credentials.

“You want injecshion?”

“What,” said Ben, “Hell yes, I want an injection - how does that work? If you can’t come near me, how can you give me an injection?”

“Drone do it,” replied Hurty, “I control from here, no problem!”

Ben thought about it, but he was not too sure. Injections were bad enough, but letting this maniac do it from over there was asking for trouble. His tooth shot a pain through his jaw. He was desperate; he had to do something.

“You haven’t even told me what you are going to do,” protested Ben. Either way, if he got his tooth filled or pulled, that drone would be doing it; it had evil eyes.

Almost as if he was reading his mind, Hurty declared, “better to pull it out less pwoblems, I fink.”

Before Ben could answer, he heard the familiar sound of the drone start up – “Bzzzzzzzz, bzzzzzzz, BZZZZZZ,” as it got closer. Ben had his eyes shut, he didn’t want to see what was going to happen.

“Pull down mask. Open mouse and shhtay open,” instructed Hurty.

“Archoo!” came a loud noise and then another one “Archoo!”

Ben opened his eyes. Hurty was sneezing into his mask. With each sneeze, he lost more and more of his vision and the control of his Xbox controller. A cloud of white lumpy fog covered Hurty’s ventilator.

Ben shifted his gaze to the evil drone just in time to see it launch towards his face and stick a needle into the side of his nose.

“Damn,” yelled Hurty, “mishhed you!”

“Crazy bastard,” yelled Ben, “what the hell are you doing?”

As he got up to leave the chair, he lost the sensation on the left side of his nose, mouth; in fact, the whole left side of his face.

“I-mmm o-u-t- of her—rre, shlore tooof or no shlooore toof.” He tried to spit out.

He ran out of the room, leaving Hurty to try and regain control of his drone. It looked like it was having an epileptic fit after getting sprayed in the eyes with more of Hurty’s deadly disinfectant.

Once outside, Ben’s face was completely numb. Why didn’t anything ever work for him?

His tooth didn’t hurt anymore, which was great. He thought it was better to stick with aspirin than face another dumbass-jellybean like Hurty.

He headed off down the street as two police officers approached him. “Excuse me,” said the larger of the two.

Great, thought Ben, what now? COVID police?

In his haste, Ben had forgotten to pull his mask up.

“Sir, don’t move,” as one of them seemed to reach for his gun.

Ben’s numbness was making his face twitch like some serial maniac, which was obviously upsetting the policeman.

Ben froze. He had had enough trouble for one day.

Till next time,

Calvin

Submitted to Mikeydred’s unofficial Maypole Dance Challenge: