Author Topic: Pseudopod 054: Toothache  (Read 14108 times)

Bdoomed

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on: September 07, 2007, 07:55:22 PM
Pseudopod 054: Toothache


By James Maddox
Read by Ben Phillips

He tongued the tooth and felt the slick little slivers that protruded from the cavities in his molar. He’d done this to himself, letting it get as bad as it was, he knew that, and he was about to end it himself as well; no Dr. Lynch needed. Clamp, pull, and no more troubles.

As soon as the metal touched his teeth he had to pause.

Pain filled the empty hole his doubt had created. John held a breath and tightened again on the tooth. He started pulling, slowly at first, to see what he was up against, but decided that the forceful approach was the best.



Listen to this week's Pseudopod.

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eytanz

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Reply #1 on: September 07, 2007, 08:33:30 PM
That was a nice, feel good story - a guy has a toothache, but in the end it turns out he was just making a new friend.

...

...

Or maybe he was just going totally insane. Not sure.



Russell Nash

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Reply #2 on: September 08, 2007, 02:56:52 PM
What does everyone think it was? 

Really good intro this week.



robertmarkbram

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Reply #3 on: September 09, 2007, 09:12:03 PM
A tooth golem?

To think how much money I have wasted at the dentist!

I was puzzled by a line in the story revealing that the John had been paid money to pull teeth in the past. I wonder what sort of a person John really is. Maybe he is a thug? he seems to be living a very seedy life style.

Not a tooth golem. A tooth demon. It has wings. A baby tooth demon, perhaps the first of its kind. I think it will not communicate with John, not in any conventional way. Instead, it will grow to the size of his hand maybe, and in his obsession he will begin carrying the little tooth demon around with him. He will even grow comfortable sleeping with it nuzzled up against his face... against his mouth.

It won't surprise him to find another toothache invading his dreams, and this time when he wakes from the pain he will look at his first tooth demon and smile maniacally..


eytanz

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Reply #4 on: September 09, 2007, 09:17:04 PM
I was puzzled by a line in the story revealing that the John had been paid money to pull teeth in the past. I wonder what sort of a person John really is. Maybe he is a thug? he seems to be living a very seedy life style.

You misinterpreted the comment - he said that as a kid, he used to pull out his own teeth and get money for it - obviously an allusion to fact that kids often get money from their parents (in the guise of a tooth fairy) for losing their baby teeth, and once the tooth becomes loose kids normally just pull it out rather than wait for it to fall (I know I did)...



Leon Kensington

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Reply #5 on: September 10, 2007, 04:37:57 AM
Good story.  I don't think I will ever be able to look my dentist in the eye again.  Ever.  Which sucks because he lives next door to me.

Story:  8 out of 10                                         Reading:  9 out of 10



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Reply #6 on: September 10, 2007, 04:26:21 PM
I kind of liked this story.  For a while I thought the creatures in his dreams were trying to save him from the thing in his mouth.

Very vivid, but in some places almost too much so.

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robertmarkbram

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Reply #7 on: September 10, 2007, 09:34:34 PM
I was puzzled by a line in the story revealing that the John had been paid money to pull teeth in the past. I wonder what sort of a person John really is. Maybe he is a thug? he seems to be living a very seedy life style.

You misinterpreted the comment - he said that as a kid, he used to pull out his own teeth and get money for it - obviously an allusion to fact that kids often get money from their parents (in the guise of a tooth fairy) for losing their baby teeth, and once the tooth becomes loose kids normally just pull it out rather than wait for it to fall (I know I did)...



Ahhhhhh! The light of understanding illuminates me now, like dentist's lamp shining in my eyes.. Pulling your own teeth for cash. And to think, my mother made me vacuum the house for money!


wakela

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Reply #8 on: September 11, 2007, 10:56:08 PM
Although I did cringe during the tooth-pulling scene, the rest of the story didn't do too much for me.  I would have liked more character development and dramatic tension.  John didn't seem to have any obstacles to overcome, nothing for me to worry about.



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Reply #9 on: September 13, 2007, 05:53:59 PM
Although I did cringe during the tooth-pulling scene, the rest of the story didn't do too much for me.  I would have liked more character development and dramatic tension.  John didn't seem to have any obstacles to overcome, nothing for me to worry about.

My thoughts exactly.  Guy has wierd dreams.  Guy rips tooth out.  Tooth had an alien or something in it.  Guy makes friends with it.
Didn't Sigler do this soooo much better with Infection?
« Last Edit: September 14, 2007, 04:28:31 AM by goatkeeper »



Chodon

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Reply #10 on: September 15, 2007, 02:08:43 AM
The scene where he actually ripped out the tooth made the whole story for me.  I was driving home from work just wincing listening to the description and tonguing my own tooth.  It was awesome. 

Those who would sacrifice liberty for safety deserve neither.


Bright Lies

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Reply #11 on: September 19, 2007, 05:35:05 AM
I listened to this story in the same setting that I listen to all others:  while working in a DENTAL DIAGNOSTIC LABORATORY!!!

Needless to say, this story had some added shock value for me.  I'll be sure to pass it around the lab and the rest of the dental school.



Russell Nash

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Reply #12 on: September 19, 2007, 07:58:18 AM
I listened to this story in the same setting that I listen to all others:  while working in a DENTAL DIAGNOSTIC LABORATORY!!!

Needless to say, this story had some added shock value for me.  I'll be sure to pass it around the lab and the rest of the dental school.

Cool,  do you see little creatures running around the edges of the rooms now?



Chodon

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Reply #13 on: September 19, 2007, 04:00:11 PM
I listened to this story in the same setting that I listen to all others:  while working in a DENTAL DIAGNOSTIC LABORATORY!!!

Needless to say, this story had some added shock value for me.  I'll be sure to pass it around the lab and the rest of the dental school.

So what is the technical or scientific name for this condition?

Those who would sacrifice liberty for safety deserve neither.


Bright Lies

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Reply #14 on: September 19, 2007, 05:01:28 PM
Russel:  I keep my little creatures locked up in the attic.  ;)

Chodon:  I think the "technical or scientific" name for this condition is "schizophrenic hallucination".  But I've always had a hard time telling the difference between fantasy and reality myself...  so who knows.   ???

I'm not a Dentist, I just happen to work with a lot of them.  I'm a research assistant.  Interestingly, I do research concerning the real-life little bugs that grow people's mouths (among other places):  the dreaded CANDIDA!!!!  As in Candida albicans, Candida glabrata, Candida tropicalis, Candida dublinensis, Candida parapsilosis, and so on...  It's a large clinical study identifying and characterizing isolates out of samples from immunocompromised patients.  I basically grow people's spit up on petri dishes, isolate bugs, extract DNA, do all sorts of little tests on it, and report what I find to a database...  all while listening intently to Pseudopod and Escape Pod episodes.   8)

But I'm nearly caught up on the old episodes, so I'll need some more, please.  :)



Leon Kensington

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Reply #15 on: September 20, 2007, 04:14:14 AM
Wow, so Toothache was not creepy at all for you.  Neither was the one where the research assistant accidentally finds the portal to another dimension where in Cthulu is real and...JK



Bright Lies

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Reply #16 on: September 20, 2007, 04:49:41 AM
For what it's worth, I'd like to see Pseudopod go "ballz to the wallz" and start recruiting some seriously disturbing stories.  I don't care if it's child rape like in "Flat Diane" (what else gets someone more furious while listening to a story), or necrophilia (anything more taboo than that?) or even CHILD NECROPHELIA, or BEASTIALITY, or down-to-earth serial killer stories, or anything else y'all come up with... this is Pseudopod and as far as I'm concerned, it's why I listen to Pseudopod....   

I want to feel like I've done something wrong just by listening (really, seriously, disturb me).  I want to take my headphones off at the end of the story and be paranoid that everyone I pass in the hallway KNOWS that I'm listening to some sick shiz...   lol 

I want to step onto the elevator while listening to Pseudopod and feel like I should turn the volume down for fear of being pegged as a psycho...  muahahahaha!   (and many times, I do)

Isn't that what Pseudopod is all about?

And for weakness' sake, the warning at the website is GOOD ENOUGH!!!  No need to start every episode with a warning.

So I guess what I'm trying to say, Leon_Kensington, is no; Toothache was not creepy at all to me.

BL




Leon Kensington

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Reply #17 on: September 20, 2007, 01:20:42 PM
Glad to see I'm not alone in my addiction to the disturbed.



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Reply #18 on: November 11, 2007, 11:56:20 PM
It had a lot of good ingredients, but it just didn't gel into an engaging story for me. I kept waiting for the punch line.

The extraction was a high point, with the potential for self-inflicted pain and all. I wouldn't have used vise-grips though. Too much risk of the tooth breaking off, I would think.

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DarkKnightJRK

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Reply #19 on: November 29, 2007, 07:16:32 AM
It's not that disturbing at all. In fact, it's rather heartwarming--he made a new friend! ;D



Myrealana

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Reply #20 on: December 24, 2007, 07:05:12 PM
I think I tried to crawl out of my own skin listening to the description of the self-extraction of that tooth.

After that, I don't even know that I registered much of the story.

I could listen to it again, but....

No, I don't think I could, really.

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stePH

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Reply #21 on: May 26, 2009, 05:24:43 PM
I completely failed to see the point of this story.   Just seventeen minutes shot to hell.

(listening to all Pseudopod stories in sequence, only got to this one last night.)

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Russell Nash

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Reply #22 on: June 03, 2009, 08:11:37 PM
There might not have been the biggest point to this one, but, man, did it make me squirm in my seat.



Unblinking

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Reply #23 on: September 30, 2009, 04:50:12 PM
Meh.
Where most people would have taken pain-killers and called the dentist for an emergency appointment, he heads to the bathroom with a Vice Grip.  Maybe I was picturing a tooth too far back in the mouth, but I had trouble imagining him maneuvering a vice group in there, that is a wide tool.  And generally the gripping part has a wide enough clamp I don't know how you could pull without catching part of another tooth.

The thing is, he didn't really have any obstacles.  The tooth pulling didn't seem nearly as hard as it should've been, and in the end, it didn't turn out to be horrible at all.  And then it ends before we find out what's going to happen next.  To me that wasn't the good kind of ambiguity in an ending, where one is left with a couple alternatives.  To me this was the other kind, like the writer got this far, had no idea where to go next, and just stopped writing.

The dream sequences were interesting, particularly the wingless fairy living in the consumer-cave, but it wasn't sufficient to carry the rest of the tale.

The scene with the dentist was just a waste of time.  What do I care that he's thinking of retirement?  Trimming that would've lost nothing to the plot, and so cutting it would've tightened it up nicely.




Millenium_King

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Reply #24 on: August 09, 2010, 10:40:16 PM
Someone should probably go back and remind the author to put a plot in this one.  The beginning was pretty dull and I had no reason to care about the character.  The dreams were pretty, but insignificant and did not succeed on their weirdness alone (which is all they had going for them).  Just after the little monster appears, we get a perspective shift?  Who cares about the dentist?  This story's most interesting area was the little monster, but the thing just appears then the story ends.  Felt like the last Act should have been the first Act of the story, the rest of it cut, and the plot refocussed around the creature.

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Bdoomed

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Reply #25 on: August 10, 2010, 08:37:48 AM
Someone should probably go back and remind the author to put a plot in this one.

Watch it, mister.

I'd like to hear my options, so I could weigh them, what do you say?
Five pounds?  Six pounds? Seven pounds?


Millenium_King

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Reply #26 on: August 10, 2010, 04:04:36 PM
Someone should probably go back and remind the author to put a plot in this one.

Watch it, mister.

Hmmm.  Didn't think that would be an inappropriate comment.  It is duly retracted.

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Bdoomed

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Reply #27 on: August 11, 2010, 06:45:04 PM
Someone should probably go back and remind the author to put a plot in this one.

Watch it, mister.

Hmmm.  Didn't think that would be an inappropriate comment.  It is duly retracted.
It's teetering over the edge.  :P

I'd like to hear my options, so I could weigh them, what do you say?
Five pounds?  Six pounds? Seven pounds?


Listener

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Reply #28 on: August 12, 2010, 12:19:49 PM
Someone should probably go back and remind the author to put a plot in this one.

Watch it, mister.

Hmmm.  Didn't think that would be an inappropriate comment.  It is duly retracted.
It's teetering over the edge.  :P

As long as the edge is over Niagara Falls, don't worry... if it falls, Superman will rescue it while Lois looks around, wondering where her hot dog and freshly-squeezed orange juice have gotten off to.

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