Writing Blindfolded

by

F. Ulanoff

            My appointment was set in stone as I popped two Valium into my mouth an hour before it was to take place.

            My mind drifted between the ordeal of two root canals and bliss.

            The bliss from the med,  which calmed my body and soul and the far away thought of what was about to happen within my mouth cavity, only one short hour away.

            Dressed and ready to go, my mate brought around the car to our driveway.

            I drifted into my coat and armed with my backpack and blank journal, I entered the automobile that was about to take me to my destiny.

            We drove for what seemed like five minutes until I realized the moment was upon me.

            I stumbled into the dentist’s waiting room on the arm of my mate, and then was ushered into the room where my procedure would soon take place.

            The surgeon came into the small confined area with his assistant at his side.  After introducing himself to me and making the smallest talk I’d ever heard, he administered, one at a time, what I perceived to be about five needles into my mouth.

            The small talk got lower as I opened my journal and with pen in hand guided myself to the page on my right with my left hand below it to steady the prose.

            With my mouth open and my eyes closed I started to write.

            At first there was little that came to the first page of this academic journey to the dentist except explaining to myself in print what was taking place, but after a while I eased into what I thought might be the beginnings of a story.

            Page after page got filled with my script.  It was as if someone had gotten hold of my hand and forced it through this nightmare.

            When the surgery was over I heard the dentist’s voice call out to me as I opened my eyes and placed my pen in its slot, and then closed my book.

            It took about, what I believed it to be at the time, an hour until we arrived at our house, where I stumbled out of our car, with again the help of my mate, into the living room where I plopped myself down onto our sofa and fell asleep, for a couple of hours.

            Curiosity got the better of me, until I reached for my journal just to see if I had actually written anything of value four hours before.

            To my surprise, the handwriting was so much neater than my conscious scribbling and there within the covers of my journal was an actual story, with a title, beginning, middle and end.

            So as I deduced, that the hand that wrote words was one from deep within my almost unconscious soul, and if I had to admit it I would say she had more talent than I even blindfolded.

The End