The Milky Way

'Imagine you're an astronaut experiencing significant gravitational force during blast-off,' I told myself while almost horizontal in the dentist's chair, my poor face exhibiting a ridiculous rictus grin. 'Per ardua ad astra,' as they say in sky pilot circles.

Being called from the waiting room certainly felt like exiting Earth's atmosphere; and entering this surgical room a good approximation of climbing into some NASA rocket's capsule. 

Now, after the novocaine, I'm drifting in outer space between hitherto unknown nebulas and hazy stars. That overhead lamp has become double moons, quickly eclipsed by a Martian warlord wearing mint-green scrubs, who approaches with his science-fiction tools of tooth and gum torture. 

But I am Captain Fez, trained to withstand any pain in the known Universe, even a root canal like the one that made Flash Gordon cry. 

Meanwhile, in another stratosphere, strands of silvery dental floss are sucked into a Black Hole that resembles an open mouth. An electric bristled toothbrush hurtles through time on its mission to discover hard to reach cavities. But I'm in suspended animation and wouldn't notice a Supernova if one exploded in my face.

"I'd like to probe you again in about six months," the Martian warlord says when his interrogation of my molars is finally over. "Please see the Venusian slave-girl at the reception desk to make an appointment on your way out."

And so I return to Earth, still feeling slightly weightless and unable to do much other than mumble and sigh. 'One small sigh for me, one giant smirk for my dentist's bank account,' to paraphrase Neil Armstrong.

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