Dentophobia - Fear of Dentists - #OctoboPhobia short story

The light is glaring into my eyes as I sit back in the chair, my mouth open, while the dentist prods and checks through my mouth.

“Okay, you’ve got a bit of an infection,” he says. “Just here…” He touches the end of the small metallic stick against it and a jolt of pain jumps through my mouth like electricity.

“Ah!” I say, involuntarily.

“You’re going to need a root canal,” he says, pulling his fingers away from my mouth and angling the light away from my face.

I’m relieved at the light being moved, but immediately apprehensive about the root canal. “I’ve heard they’re painful,” I tell him.

“They used to be” he says, looking at my x-rays. “Now, though, we can kill the infection before we extract the root, so it’s not as bad. Back in the day, they used to go ahead with it when it was at its most painful.”

“Oh,” I say, stupidly. I’m still nervous, the hairs on my arms rising.

I’m getting married next month, which is why I’m here. I promised her that I’d come and get the full check-up. Even though I’ve not been to the dentist since I was 16. I avoid them.

It’s easy enough to avoid, most of the time. For the most part, tooth pain doesn’t last. It’s more an irritating twinge, without serious pain. Even when it gets properly painful, a mixture of painkillers and alcohol not only usually helped, but they also meant that nights out were fun.

But I promised. We want the wedding photos to be perfect and she wants me – for just one day – to be perfect as well. So I’m here, proving just how much I love her.

Before I met her, I was a mess. Drinking every night to get through to the next day, and just going out of my head at the weekends on anything I could get my hands on.

And the women. I never thought I’d be able to be satisfied with one woman. Every night, if I wasn’t drinking, I was doing my best to make sure I woke up in someone else’s bed.  Most nights, I failed, but every now and then, I’d reach one of the few times I didn’t utterly loathe myself. Some I saw more than once, but most I never saw again. I just treated them like bodies. Warm bodies, with presumably some past and home life, but not ones I ever cared about.

But then her. The one least likely, with the quiet demeanour, the brain I could never match and even the daughter that I loved just as much. The one who made me change everything. Eventually. I’d strayed once or twice, but even that had fallen by the wayside. A few problems here or there, but I’d decided to make it work.

And eventually, that brought me here. I’d been given a family, and even if I didn’t want to come to the dentist, if Sarah asked me to, I did it.  

“How do you kill the infection?”

“It’s just an injection,” he said, picking up a syringe and readying it.

I tried not to think too much about it. My fear of needles was not playing well with the idea, but it was outperformed by my fear of a painful root canal.

“Then we do the root canal?”

`“No, that’ll need to be in a few days, while this takes hold. It’ll be fine though – you won’t even notice.”

“Okay,” I said, thinking of Sarah.

I open my mouth and look up at the ceiling, not looking at him hulking over me, reaching down into my mouth and pushing the needle into my gum, then pressing down on the plunger.

I know that the needle is something I should barely feel, although it pushes against the root of my tooth. I know that, but I feel the hardness of it, pushing unnaturally into my mouth.

“It won’t take long,” he says. And then he chuckles. A deep, dark chuckle.

I feel a prickling sensation spread across my face and I pass out.

I wake up, my head pounding. I try to move it, but I can’t. I can feel something against my chin and forehead keeping it still.

I’m sat down. I can feel that. I try to move my hands up to my head, but they are prevented by a large, thick leather strap on either armrest. It’s the same with my ankles.

As I struggle against them, I realise that there’s another strap – a larger one – wrapped across my waist.

“What the hell?” I try to say, but my words come out wrong. Like I can’t form letters, my tongue too big and clumsy for my mouth. “Whu hu hehh?”

“You really don’t remember me, do you?” He says from somewhere behind me. I try to turn, my eyes still taking in my grimy, dark surroundings.

“Iduhd….I duhndnuh…”

The wall is covered in something that look like egg containers, but black. Lots of them, covering from floor to ceiling.

“No reason you should, I suppose,” he says. His tone is conversational. He could be describing what’s gone wrong in the engine of his car.

“Wuh… wuh…”

“To you, I suppose, she was just a one night stand in some hotel somewhere. A one night willing fuck that wouldn’t leave you alone.”

“I… I duhn….”

“I wonder if that’s why you chose her. From watching you over the last few months, you have enough going on in your own house, with Sarah and little Lizzie. You don’t need another relationship, do you?”

“I.. inevuh….”

I can hear something metallic behind me, grinding against something else.

“I mean it’s all good for you, obviously. You get to have your fun and then walk away from it all.”

He walks in front of me, across to another table, but doesn’t make any eye contact with me. 

“Pluh….” I say.

“Maybe she told you her real name. Maybe not. It doesn’t really matter. Because she left me.”

“I dih… dihn” He starts rummaging around the table and the drawers next to it.

“But I found her again. And I made sure that she’d never do it again.”

“Nuh! Nuh! Pluhs!”

“And that just meant that I had to find you. This took a long time, you know.”

With his back to me, he makes a low, deep noise. I realise he is laughing.

I try to speak, and try to shout, but all I can make is grunting, incoherent noises.

He turns to me, the dental drill whirring.

“You’re underground. I had this room soundproofed, just waiting for you.”

He laughs again, it becoming more high pitched as he moves towards me, or maybe that’s just the whine of the drill.

“Don’t be afraid to scream.”

He moves the head of the drill against my tooth, and pushes down slowly. The vibration in my skull is as deep as the noise is high.

Somewhere I am screaming. Somewhere he is laughing. But the whine of the drill is all I can hear.

Decidophobia (fear of making decisions) - #Octobophobia short story

The announcement has been overdue for months.

“You’ve tested the radio,” The daughter says to her father.

“I’m testing it again,” The father replies.

The noise is irritating her and setting her off. “There hasn’t been anything for weeks. It’s broken.”

“The system’s down, that’s all. “

“It’s broken,” she says and walks away from the room.

The whirring of the generator and the static of the radio are too much for her. She goes to the area of the bunker that’s been cordoned off to give her some privacy and lays down on the campbed. She tries to think of somewhere else.

Anywhere else. Anywhere on the other side of the door.

She tries to sleep.

The father tinkers with the radio still and tries not to think about his wife. Tries not to think about everybody else.

The food won’t last forever. They both know that, but he has a more realistic idea of how much is left. He knows how quickly it will realistically work out. He hates to see her hungry, but if there’s one thing he can do while they’re stuck down here, it’s to keep her alive.

They don’t have much privacy or space, but they have some. They have some dividers for their own spaces, but they can always hear each other.  That’s the bit he finds the most difficult. They’re cut off from everyone else, but they are never entirely by themselves either. Instead, he knows that he irritates her now more than any human being ever has, even while he knows that she loves him.

He tries not to think of the door.

Slowly, he goes through every frequency on the radio, testing both ways. He repeats the phrases as he does and waits for responses.

Like he does every day. For months now.

The daughter eventually stands up and walks to the bunker door.

“What are you doing?” The father says to her.

“The radio’s broken,” she says. “We’ll go crazy if we’re down here.”

“What if it isn’t safe?” He says.

“Then we’ll… we’ll…”

“This is why we wait for the announcement.”

“What if the announcement never comes?”

The father doesn’t say anything. All his answers have fallen apart. They’ve been down here too long.

“We need to leave,” the daughter says, weeks later.

“We can’t,” the father replies.

“What do we have if we stay here?”

“What if it isn’t safe?”

“We don’t have a choice,” she says. “We’re running out of food.”

“No, we’re not,” he says. “There’s still enough.”

“We’re running out of options, then.”

“Then that’s enough to keep us alive.”

She nods. “Keep us alive, yes. But this isn’t living. This is just waiting. We don’t have a choice. We need to go outside and find out.”

“We might die if we do.”

“We will die if we don’t.”

She looks at the door. “It won’t take long,” she says.

“We cant,” says the father.

She walks up to the door. “We don’t have a choice.”

“Of course we do.”

“We don’t know how bad it is out there.”

She smiles sadly. “We may never know.”

The father pulls back, nervously.  He watches her for a moment, then sits at the table where they’ve been eating the same four meals for days.

“I know,” he says.

The daughter stops. Her hand just in front of the door handle. “Really?”

“Yes,” he says. “But if we go out… if the radiation is bad…”

“Wouldn’t you rather know?”

“…we can fix the radio.”

The daughter shouts now. “We’ve tried fixing the radio! We’ve been trying for weeks to fix the radio! There’s nothing!”

He hangs his head. “We should wait. We don’t have a choice.”

“There’s always a choice,” she says.

“But taking it may kill us,” the father responds.

She steels herself and then places her hand onto the door handle. The metal, like the door, like the walls, like the table, like the campbed, is cold.

“Don’t do it!”, the father shouts.

She holds her hand on the handle. All she needs to do is push down and then pull.

That’s all she needs to do.

But she hesitates.

TO OPEN THE DOOR CLICK HERE

TO WAIT CLICK HERE

OPENING (#Octobophobia Decidophobia ending)

She feels the heat first. The clouds are dark and heavy, with only the smallest fragments of daylight making it through.

“Come back in,” the father pleads.

She ignores him and takes some shaky steps forward. The air is acrid and thick. The ground feels hot underneath her feet.

He feels the heat now behind her. “Is it… is it… okay?”  He moves towards the door.

She looks around her, trying to see in the darkness. The air is hurting her eyes, burning like chlorine.

“I… I don’t know,” she says.

Her eyes slowly, painfully adjust.

She can see for miles. Rubble, dust and death is all that there is.

Bringing her hand to her eyes, she rubs them. It helps with the stinging a little bit.

“Is there anyone there?” the father asks.

“No,” she says. “There’s nothing.”

She begins to walk.

Waiting (#Octobophobia Decidophobia ending)

She takes her hand off the handle and crumbles to her knees. It is the last burst of momentum that she had and she knows it.

The father puts his hand on her shoulder. “We’re better waiting,” he says. She believes him.

The announcement will come, surely.

But it never does.

They wait for months, but eventually the generator fails. Without it, the air filtration stops working.  

It takes time.

Slow, painful time.

When things you love stop being yours...

It’s a strange feeling when something stops being yours.

Superhero comics and wrestling have been two hobbies that have been mine since the early 90s. I’ve been obsessed with both for decades.

When I started watching, both were aimed fairly firmly at me. Boy hobbies very much aimed at boys. And as I grew up, my tastes in both matured, and they continued to be aimed at me, with the (relatively) clean cut Bret Hart and Batman replaced by the stubblier and more violent Wolverine, Gambit and Stone Cold Steve Austin. Aimed squarely at me and people like me.

And recently, this has changed. Because they’re no longer aimed at me. I have a fairly major and specific complaint about this. They’re aimed at girls. Not even women. Girls.

That’s not the complaint. Let me give some context first.

The latest issue of Ms Marvel came out yesterday. Now, Ms Marvel, if you haven’t heard, is a superhero. She’s also a teenage Muslim girl named Kamala Khan, who has to juggle saving people with hoping that her strict family don’t find out. It is one of the best comics Marvel have put out in years, and one of the best comic books of the last decade. It’s funny, heartfelt and smart.

And Kamala has created a fandom that’s brand new. Just look at this letter (left) in the latest issue from a little girl called Charlotte.

This, believe me, is not the usual level of letters that you see in comics. Absolute adoration for a great character by a little girl. And treated in response warmly and without mocking.

This isn’t my complaint. I’m getting to it though.

Wait. Let me explain with some wrestling stuff. I’ve written before about problems with racism and homophobia in wrestling, and at some point, I’ll address sexism, but this is a bit different.

This is Bayley. She is the NXT (WWE’s smaller league feeder division) women’s champion. Unlike the past ways women have been treated in wrestling, she’s been main eventing. And she’s been having a series of great matches. She’s also wholesome, cute, wears headbands and shirts with ‘I’m a hugger’, which sell enormous amounts already.

She's throwing a hug to the audience. And because they love her, theyre throwing it right back.

This is Izzy. She’s Bayley’s biggest fan and comes to lots of the events dressed as her.

Again, it’s fair to say that this is not your typical wrestling fan.

Izzy gets emotionally into it to a huge degree. She’s young enough that this is real for her, and Bayley is her absolute hero. When Bayley was fighting Sasha Banks (an arrogant ‘heel’) in one of the best matches of the year, Sasha started teasing Izzy.

Now that's a heel.

She even stole her headband, reducing Izzy to tears.

The most horrible thing to ever happen in wrestling.

Bayley fought back, finally celebrating. Izzy’s reactions throughout the match told the story almost as well as the women in the ring.

Twitter and Tumblr may have got a bit emotional.

And the following day, she forgave Sasha (who also gave her the flowers in the background).

I have never seen anything like this in wrestling before.

Nor in comics.

And this is my complaint.

What the hell took so long?

There’s nothing to gain by limiting your audience. Nothing. When you look at anything – be it movies, books, horror, wrestling, comics, or (and yes, this is a big one) videogames – the longer that it’s purely aimed at young (and, in my case, not so young) men, the longer it becomes a defensive monoculture.

A monoculture that gets defensive and sarcastic, in places like wrestling forums I’ve seen, where Bayley’s repeatedly criticised for not being attractive enough. Because a lot of fans still think that it should just be for them.

A monoculture that ends up just like Gamergate. One that will abuse people for not liking things the right way. Not allowing them to even be fans in their own way.

I can understand wanting to keep part of a culture to yourself. There’s a level of ownership, which can give a sense of control – a control that can often feel lacking in other parts of life. Sometimes, this can be a positive, but the longer it goes on unchecked, it can go from affirmation to a strange “I am special because I like this” approach. It becomes exclusion rather than expansion.

When I look at Izzy and Charlotte, fans of things that I love at an age that’s younger than I ever got into it, I’ve found myself oddly emotional. There’s something rather wonderful about this, and about seeing some of the things that I love opening up to new audiences – ones that couldn’t be much further away from me.

This isn’t mine any more.

And that’s a wonderful thing.

Cynophobia - Fear of Dogs - #Octobophobia Short Story

My mother was a cancer. An absolute cancer on my life. I’m glad she’s dead.  Or I was, anyway.

I maintain she’s why I never married. Every man I ever got close to always suddenly had second thoughts about the relationship after they had to spend time with her. And every one of them pretended it wasn’t anything to do with her constant undermining, constant passive-aggression and constant neediness. And then she’d make constant comments about me being single again.

She was the worst of all worlds. And she took up my entire world. Phone calls, visits, texts. Just constant bloody attention.

And when I didn’t answer for more than a week or two, she’d get ill. Every time. And it’d be one thing if she was faking it, but she never was. And it was always either serious or had the potential to be serious.

So I’d have to give up time to look after her again. I’d have to move in again and cook for her, clean for her, and – depending on the level of severity – clean her. And she’d take it all with a clear sense of disdain, making it obvious that she considered that she as the one doing me the favour

She’d just sit there, or lie there, like a bloated, poisonous toad. And she’d ignore me and put all of her attention on that bloody dog.

I haven’t mentioned the dog yet, have I?

It was a small, black, wiry, oily, unpleasant little thing. It would follow her around like a malevolent shadow, and she would dote on it with all of the love that she never showed me. “Bluebell”, she called the thing.

It hated me, obviously. Any other visitors, which were few and far between, would be treated as a new best friend. But me… it would sit and watch me warily the entire time. The only noises it made were either high pitched whines or low, petulant growls.

A little ball of hatred, carried around by a woman filled with hate. Like a colostomy bag for bitterness.

Somewhere along the lines, I stopped helping and started encouraging her to die. Somewhere, when she started trying to improve her health, I’d push her towards the unhealthier options. Reminding her how much she loved drinking and smoking. Reminding her how much she loved red meat and rich food.

Somewhere, I started hoping she would die, as I spent every day cleaning up after her, wiping up after her, and avoiding the sullen stares of the dog.

And one day, when she’d shouted at me, abused me and been as ungrateful as she ever had been, I watched her die. She slipped in the bath while I was sat on the edge. She was trying to grasp and get her balance, trying to lift her head above the water.

All I needed to do to save my mother was to reach. With one hand, even. Just enough to grasp her hand and allow her to right herself.

But I didn’t. While the dog clawed at the bathroom door, I just sat and watched. Watched her try to lift herself, but not able to. Watched her panic and desperately try to breathe, but having the water fill her mouth, throat and lungs instead.

I waited. Eventually, I walked out of the room. The dog ran in frantically through my legs and jumped and barked at the bath.

I gave it a while before I called the police.

I tried to get rid of the dog. I did. Of course I did.  

But it didn’t work. I opened the door and found her on the pathway outside. I asked all of my mother’s friends if anyone wanted to take the small, black demon, but none of them did.

So I left it be. I let it just be outside, and went away to work. But by the time I came back, the mutt was still sat there, whining and growling at me.

I couldn’t not feed it. I may have allowed someone I hated to die, but despite my loathing, it was just a dog. And I couldn’t bring myself to let it starve.

It wolfed down any food I brought it at first, but as it regained its strength, it appeared to regain its hatred of me and would snap at me as I brought its food near.

I appealed online, making the dog sound friendly, and it worked. For a week. And then the dog turned up on the path again.

I keep seeing the dog in my head, no matter where I was. Just looking at me with those wide open eyes and the same slight tilt to the head. It always takes me a little time to work out if it’s real or not.

It would be comical if it weren’t for the sheer malevolence. The sheer hatred. It shits wherever it can – not because of a lack of training, but just to make the point which of us is tolerating the other.

I can’t kill it because it’s my responsibility, sitting there and watching me. Nobody else would take it (for good reason). And no matter what I try, it refuses to do anything other than glare, whine or bark.

I may have killed my mother, but the dog looks at me and it knows what I did.  And really, that’s why 

I have to put up with it, however many years it has left.

It knows what I did.

But I can outwait it.

I waited for my mother to die.

I can wait another few years for Bluebell.

And until then, I will feed her and tend to her and clean after her, while she subjects me to whines and growls and hatred.

Coulrophobia (fear of clowns) - #OctoboPhobia short story

The clown turned up at my door at midnight. He stood in the rain, although his colourful makeup stayed put. And he watched me.

I watched him for a while. Watched him watching me. And when I walked through to the kitchen, I knew that, within a few minutes, he’d turn up at the window. Not being aggressive. Not saying anything. Just watching.

And I knew why he was here.

When I was five years old, I was taken to the circus for the first time. I remember the noises and the lights and the colours. I remember the animals – bears, lions and elephants (although, looking back, I cant help but wonder how they were treated). I remember the acrobats, defying gravity with every move.

But most of all, I remember the clowns.

Two of them came out, with overexaggerated movements and ludicrous outfits. They went through a routine and the audience laughed hysterically throughout. Except for me. I was repulsed by them immediately.

My mom hugged me and told me it was okay, and they were just playing and in outfit, but I didn’t believe her. I didn’t trust her. And I certainly didn’t trust them.

In old pulp novels, the clown is almost always on the run. Hiding in disguise, while it turns out that they held up a bank or a shop or something, and something went wrong and they shot someone, and they went into hiding somewhere that was always on the move, and somewhere they could keep their face hidden the entire time.

In real life, they’re far worse.

Have you ever heard of John Wayne Gacy? Google him and give yourself nightmares for the next week. If the round, demented clown face isn’t enough, Gacy killed dozens of young men and teenagers.

And then he’d put that face paint on for local events. Look at the pictures and look at his eyes and that smile… not the painted ones. The real ones underneath. Look at them, and tell me that you’re really, honestly, truly surprised that he was capable of that.

As human beings, we use our sense of sight (assuming that we have one) to help us know whether or not to trust people. We see their faces when they talk to us and we communicate by expression as much as by voice. 

Just look at emojis. We had to find a way to put basic facial expressions into text once we started using it as an immediate method of communication. We didn’t feel the need to do that with letters, because letters removed the immediacy. But when you’re talking to someone online, using text alone, emojis are useful ways to get a little bit of that extra level of communication. After all, we all need to know when something’s being said with a smile and a wink, don’t we? Deadpan really doesn’t come across well when it’s typed.

We need that extra element of expression, because otherwise, when someone comes at you brandishing a knife, you need to be able to tell whether they’re friendly or angry.

So think about the importance of expression, and now wonder what kind of person feels the need to paint an expression over their own. A permanent expression that constantly makes a point of telling people that they’re smiling. That they’re happy. And that there’s nothing to worry about, because just look at them with their painted smiles and eyes and colourful hair and outfits.

Think about what kind of person goes to those lengths to convince people that they’re friendly. That they’re not a threat. And that they definitely don’t have a knife.

So, my mom and I were sat near the front, and I was crying by this point. And one of them must have noticed, because they involved us in their next trick.

I was brought into the pit in front of everyone, a shaking, terrified mess. I never really forgave my mom for that, and I never really will. I think, charitably, she was under the impression that I’d enjoy the attention and forget how scared I was.

It probably only went on for minutes, but it felt like it went on for hours. They kept doing things that seemed like they were going to be unbelievably dangerous, before it was revealed they switched it out for something safe. Like an oversized wooden mallet, swung for my head. The measuring up for the shot, like a batter winding up to knock it out the park. The swing… the practice swing… and then he brought the mallet back over his head, like he was going to do one of those tests of strength in fairs, and then all of the weight of the mallet suddenly returned and made him fall over backwards.

The crowd laughed as I wet myself, absolutely convinced they’d just been about to kill me. And as he struggled with the mallet, the other clown laughed and laughed and laughed in my face.

And then they got the bucket, which they proved to everyone was full of water. And before they poured it over my head (which was in my hands as I prayed for it all to stop), it somehow turned into confetti.

I didn’t care. I felt the water hit my head and run down me, and when I opened my eyes and looked through the tears, everything was red. Blood poured down my body and seeped through my clothes.

I screamed. I looked down at myself and screamed and everybody laughed because they could only see confetti and they thought I was just overreacting. They couldn’t see me covered in dark, red, cold blood.

But I could see it. And from the smiles on their faces, they could see it too. I could see, underneath the grease paint, utter malevolence. For the first time since the routine had begun, I could see they were really smiling.

And one of them knelt in to me and whispered – and even through the noise of the crowd laughing, I heard him clearly – “You’ll be one of us now. One day, we’ll come for you.”

I pretended not to see him at first. He’s not the first one to turn up recently. Always at midnight. Always a different clown.

There’s been a different one every night. And they just watch.

But he was the first one that managed to get into the house.

I thought that I’d locked the back door. I maintain, looking back, that I locked the back door. But maybe that didn’t matter. I’d gone to bed and eventually, fitfully, slept.

I woke up to find him at the foot of the bed.

Watching me.

He had green hair, this one. Green hair and a hat. And clean, black-and-white makeup.

He held out his hands.

One of them held a knife. The other held a makeup box.

I watched him for a while, with his open smile etched onto his face.

I knew what they were for.

He walked with me into the bathroom and he let me talk while I slowly took the box, and looked in the mirror and began to apply the paint.

The smell of greasepaint is one that sticks with you. It gets into your throat and sinuses and the hairs in your nose, and it doesn’t go away.

I painted my face with a smile and comically large eyebrows, with big red bags underneath my eyes.  It was simple, but there were flourishes.

He beckoned at me to open my mouth and I wished that they’d never picked me. I opened it, and he grabbed my tongue between his fingers, and then pushed the knife into, and then with no small effort through it. He hacked at it and sawed for minutes.

Somewhere, I was screaming and screaming, until I felt the blood pouring down my front and my throat, and suddenly, I remembered what it had felt like when they’d poured the bucket over me.

What it had looked like to everyone else. And then I thought about how funny it would be to see their reaction right now, as the clown tore through the last parts of my tongue, severing it completely.

And as much pain as I was in, all I could think of was how funny everyone’s faces would be if they knew what was really happening that night.

At some point, the screams turned into laughter. Hysterical, deep, overwhelming laughter.

I looked into the mirror at my new blood-smeared, gore-splattered face.

And I laughed. And laughed. And laughed. And laughed. And laughed.