The Distraction

Do we need to be distracted from the “normal” to experience the “paranormal.”

This is a sneak peek into a chapter of Charlie Holiday’s Book #4.

“What would you like to distract you, Mr. Holiday?”

“Distract me?”

“Yes.”

“From what?”

“From the procedure.”

“What procedure?”

“The one where we’re going to, well,” she stopped, looked at Charlie the way a dog tilts its head in curiosity. “We’re going to clean up that one tooth for you.”

“Oh,” Charlie hesitated. “Sorry, I didn’t realize I’d have to be distracted.”

“Well, you don’t have to have a movie or music if you don’t want to.”

“I can just listen to the sound of the drill bit grinding into my tooth if I prefer?”

“We have action movies. They’re loud.”

“Will I be under? Like with ether or whatever they use?”

“You’ll have a local anesthetic. You won’t feel a thing. We might add a sedative if we feel it’s necessary. You might feel a little woozy.”

“Oh, goodie.”

“So, would you like a movie or music or maybe a concert? You get these fancy-pants virtual reality goggles with headphones. Very cool.”

“Surprise me.”

“Excellent choice, Mr. Holiday.” She gathered up the goggles and turned to what looked like a DVD player and fiddled with some knobs as if she had done it thousands of times. “Maybe we’ll be all wrapped up and you won’t even remember you were here.”

Charlie sat back in the chair and was ready for a show. He briefly thought about popcorn but realized it wouldn’t go over terribly well with the dentist as it would get stuck in his teeth and all of that chewing.

Popcorn was actually good for his teeth, wasn’t it? He was sure he read it somewhere. Something about the clean but fibrous popped kernels acting like scrubbing spongers on the surface of his teeth. He was pretty sure he read an article on it and if not, he was going to do the research himself.

“Are you ready?” came the voice next to him as if he were already wearing surround sound headphones. But it was just the dental assistant.

“Did you find me a good movie?”

“Oh yes, Mr. Holiday,” she spoke in a way that Charlie couldn’t place. Something like the assistant to The Bad Guy in a thriller movie. She was very clean cut and elegant in her light blue dental uniform, but there was something about her that was just out of place. “I found something that’s just perfect for you.”

Charlie tried to think of a witty comeback, but before he could say anything, she put the contraption over his head and it covered his eyes and ears and soon the world was black and silent.

“Can you hear me?” came a distant voice as if from another dimension.

Conscious that he might speak really loudly, he chose to just give a thumbs up.

He felt her hand on his shoulder as confirmation that she got his agreement thumbs up.

Her hand either rested on his shoulder a little longer than was necessary or she was using his shoulder as leverage to lean the other way and not fall over or she was just being friendly and comforting and before he could think any more about why her hand was still on his shoulder, his screen came to life in more vivid color than anything real he had ever seen while the audio flowed into his ears as if a bass guitar had been surgically implanted in his eardrum.