Pluck. Another small, white tooth sat in my palm along with the blood dripping from my gummy mouth. I cackled as I placed it in the jar with the rest. My gums had slashes, burns and all the rest your pretty little mind could think of. I had a couple more teeth to come out. They will come out today. I wobbled them. I pulled them. I sawed at them with my knife at dinner. I pushed them. I stabbed them. At the end of the day, each one was wobbling out of my gums, just not quite falling out. I went to bed disappointed. I woke up part way through the night. And I woke up to a mess. Little pieces of my gums littered my pillow and mattress, blood pooled on the pillow just below where dark blood drivelled out of my mouth. My teeth had fallen out, but they were nowhere to be seen. A little lake formed in my mouth as I sat up, looking for my missing teeth. When I tried to call for mum, I couldn’t. It hurt too much.
I then realised.
My teeth had been swallowed. But the stabbing and sawing must have made them a little… too sharp.
My teeth lay, embedded in my oesophagus, long slashes going down my throat. Those pieces of gum laying on my bed were pieces of coughed up oesophagus. Lovely. I picked up the little worm-like piece of organ. It wiggled when my hand twitched as I inspected it. My stomach rumbled as it started to resemble sliced, raw steak more and more. My stomach rumbled even more as the little worm was placed on my tongue and then slithered down my lacerated gullet.
Tasted better than I could have imagined.