It started with dreams of teeth.
Blinding, white, flashing teeth in a black void, gnashing and gnawing and drawing ever closer. You know the opening credits of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, with the disembodied lips singing? It’s like that, but on nightmare mode. This was the way I tried explaining my dreams to my therapist. She looked at me with a concerned mouth and disinterested eyes, and asked if anything had happened recently in my life that may have triggered these dreams. I told her that I didn’t think so, that I hadn’t been chased down the street by life-size dentures anytime recently, but she just looked disappointed.
“Jay, we’ve talked about using humor as a coping mechanism. It’s not c–”
“–constructive and causes me to become numb to my emotions. Yeah. I know. I just don’t get what you’re asking.”
She explained to me that sometimes, dreams involving teeth can be interpreted to mean that the dreamer is worried about their physical appearance, or are perhaps undergoing some sort of change. I didn’t really know what she was looking for. I’m long past the point of vanity. I’ve accepted how I look. I’ve worked the same custodial job at the same community college for five years now. My parents are alive, and well, and still very disappointed in me. My life is at a standstill, and certainly not anything to start dreaming of teeth over.
My therapist didn’t know what to make of me. She rarely does. I think she’s used to her patients being receptive to her help and her “new” ideas, but I long ago accepted my issues. Therapy wasn’t even my idea; it was a Christmas “gift” from my parents two years ago. I go because some small part of me doesn’t want to disappoint them further, and this seems like the easiest way to appease them. Truly, I am okay where I am in life. I’m not happy. I wish things were different. But I’m not exactly unhappy. Just… indifferent. Existing.
The dreams started to get more intense about a month ago. I would wake up with my own teeth chattering, and my legs ached like I had been running from those disembodied nightmares all night. Sometimes the teeth were rotting or skeletally gray, no longer a monotonous blinding white. And then, the mouths started to speak.
They were my innermost thoughts and desires, my mother’s lullabies from when I was a toddler, my mundane thoughts throughout the day. One night I dreamt of a mouth filled with horribly rotted teeth gnashing after me, reciting my Burger King order from earlier that day. But no matter the words, I had always heard them before, whether they came from my own thoughts or somebody else.
It was bizarre. I would wake up humming melodies from long-forgotten lullabies in the evenings, or wake up crying, the memories of an ex saying “I love you” for the first time still fresh in my mind. The worst is when the mouths would yell the same things at me my father used to when he was drunk. Those were the days where all my energy went into actively forgetting about my nightmare. I would scrub the hallways until the handle of my mop scraped through the bristles and scratched the linoleum floor, too lost in my own concentration to care. It was bad enough that I scheduled a second session with my therapist, all on my own. She looked surprised to see me when I showed up.
“Well, this is certainly a surprise.”
She smiled warmly at me, for the first time since our first meeting, and patted the spot on the couch I always took. We exchanged small talk, and then she asked me what was going on. And this was where it became complicated.
I couldn’t just talk about the nightmares. I couldn’t explain them in a straightforward way. Every time I tried to tell her what I had seen and heard, it just became harder to force the words out. When I got to the dreams involving my exes, I started to cry. She could barely understand me. By the time I got to the dreams involving my father, I was incomprehensible, blubbering into my hands. She brought me water, and tissues, and even tried an awkward side-hug, but the panic kept coming in waves. It was like the more I talked about it, the clearer the memories became. I couldn’t do it.
“Look, I’m sorry. I can’t…this is too hard. I need to go. I just need to leave.” I stood abruptly and fumbled for the door handle.
“Jay, wait, let’s talk about this, I can help you get through this, I can–” but I was already out the door and down the hall. Then I was on the bus, and then I was in my apartment. I just slumped to the floor and cried before eventually passing out. And of course, I dreamt of the teeth.
“I love you.”
“I never loved you.”
“You were always impossible to love.”
“You were a goddamned mistake.”
The last word jolted me awake. It sounded so near. I was still on the floor, my keys in hand, but it was dark outside. I was bleary and disoriented, and I was about to start the process of standing when I noticed it. At the end of the hallway, next to the ajar bathroom door.
A mouth.
A disembodied, floating mouth.
It was smiling at me.
“You were a goddamned mistake,” it repeated, its wide grin revealing one golden tooth from dental work done long ago. I would know that tooth anywhere. Dad once yelled at me for 30 minutes for asking about it.
“You were always impossible to love.”
It came from my right this time. Pretty, curving lips, resembling my own. She had shouted that in a fit of anger after I had come home drunk and unruly one too many times.
“You’re just like your father,” it added, smiling in the way Mom used to when she told me bedtime stories. The juxtaposition of the words and the memory hit me like a train, and I scrambled away from the two mouths, scuttling uselessly like a crab. Mom’s voice followed me through the apartment, singsong-y and teasing, like the way she used to play hide-and-seek with me.
“I want you out of here in two hours. Don’t ever let me see you again. You’re a fucking disgrace.”
I was sobbing now, just like I had been at the therapist’s office. This was real. My nightmare was real. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to block everything out.
Big mistake.
When I opened my eyes, there were more. Hundreds more. They all began speaking at once, some whispering, some screaming, some singing. Song lyrics, my hopes and dreams, sweet nothings my exes had whispered in my ear… it was the most horrific symphony I’d ever heard. Five hundred smiling mouths spoke to me at once, and not one of them were merciful. I was going to die here, alone in my apartment, listening to a montage of the best and worst times of my life. I just wanted it to stop. I just wanted the silence of my own head.
“Just… stop…”
As if on cue, they did.
Dead silence. I looked up to see them all still there, hanging in the air and smiling at me. Somehow, this was almost more unnerving. Then, they all opened up, and spoke to me as one.
“Do not forget. Do not forget. Do not forget.”
And in a blink, they were all gone.
I laid there on the floor for the rest of the night. That had been what I had wanted to do all along, I suppose. Forget. Forget the bad memories and the good ones that came with it, and be forgotten by the world. I was indifferent to my own memory and the memory of others. I didn’t care if I lived on. I guess that’s why I’m writing this. This happened two nights ago, and I want to remember it. I don’t want to be indifferent anymore. I don’t want the mouths to come back. I’m afraid of what they might do if I do forget.
If you find yourself dreaming of teeth, take it as a sign.
Remember my story. Do not forget.