BLAW 3201 Chapter : Abigail Bailey Story 2
Abigail Bailey Bailey 1
Daren Dean
ENGL 2005
So Close
It had been a while since I had collected teeth for my jar.
It called to me now, an old friend beckoning to me from across the room, reaching for the
attention that I had refused to give for these past fifty years.
Finish what you've started, Joan.
I couldn’t. My time had passed. It knew this.
Do you plan on leaving everything that you've worked on this way?
What does it suggest I do at my age? I couldn't if I wanted to! It would be too
complicated.
But you still want to. You know you do.
Of course I did… It knew that I’d spent my whole life working on this.
Then what’s stopping you? You never let anything get in the way before this.
My age was stopping me now, as it well knew. Even standing in my living room with it
had started to take its toll on my knees; the popped and cracked as I sat in one of the large
armchairs around the fireplace, staring at where the black urn sat discreetly atop the mantle. A
small gold plaque read “My Loving Husband”, though we both knew that it wasn't full of ash.
Focus, Joan. You can do this, you just might have to alter your methods a little.
My breath huffed out; how exactly was I going to be able to do this differently than I
already had?
Bailey 2
“What am I then? You’ve defined me as this, not me! I never wanted to do this, you did!
Now I can’t even do that right?” I clutched at my temples, curling into a ball as I cradled my
splitting head. “How? How can you expect me to do this again? I’ve accepted who I am and what
I’ve done. I’ve moved past that, and its time you did, too.”
It’s voice rang around the room, filling the air around me, choking me with the noise that
consumed my whole being, stretching the sides of my head apart.
And how do you suggest that I do that? I am a part of you. One with you. We are
together. This is who you are, and you need to embrace it instead of accepting it and casting it
aside. Finish it. Finish me. Finish us.
* * *
Since I was little, teeth have fascinated me.
I would stare at mine for hours in the mirror, flashing them at myself, bearing my lips
back in a snarl like an angry hound would, letting the back molars be seen as the front teeth
were.
Other kids in school hated me. I was odd to them; some wild girl running around the
playground did not good friends make, but I knew that and didn't care, not even then.
I still didn't have friends, save for the jar.
The day I lost my first tooth, I cried for hours. I was inconsolable. My mother cradled me
in her arms, not fully understanding why I refused to give up my front tooth to anyone, let alone
some creepy fairy that stole in to take my favorite thing to replace it with something as stupid as
money.
Bailey 3
When that tooth was never replaced, I needed to die. I was incomplete, and I knew it. I
hated myself. I couldn't bear to be seen. As more left me, I fell deeper and deeper into a wild
downward spiral.
They never did grow back, though no doctor or dentist ever knew why that was the case.
They were just gone.
They left me feeling like I was dead.
When the last one fell out, I made my first Jar.
It wasn't a special thing, not yet like what it would become. A simple mason jar sat on my
bedside, housing my little enamel losses.
My father was the one who bought me my first pair of dentures.
I hated them.
They were fake. They weren't real. They mocked the real in such a way, that I couldn't
stand putting them in my mouth. Id rather be disgraced than attempting to replace the
irreplaceable. Unless I needed them to eat, they didn't come near me.
Children at school were vicious. They called me names, “Gummy” and “Toothless”.
Little Sarah Walker was the worse. She never left me alone, stealing my dentures during lunch,
always asking if she could stick her finger in my mouth and touch my gums.
It was a Saturday, the day I punched Sarah in the mouth. She had stolen my dentures at
lunch, like usual, but she took them to recess and dropped them in the fresh mud from the rain.
She dug them into the filth with her heel, laughing as she did.
When I hit her, I felt alive again.
Her blood smeared across my knuckles, and I felt something crack against my fist.
Document Summary
It had been a while since i had collected teeth for my jar. It called to me now, an old friend beckoning to me from across the room, reaching for the attention that i had refused to give for these past fifty years. Of course i did it knew that i"d spent my whole life working on this. My age was stopping me now, as it well knew. A small gold plaque read my loving husband , though we both knew that it wasn"t full of ash. You can do this, you just might have to alter your methods a little. I never wanted to do this, you did! Now i can"t even do that right? i clutched at my temples, curling into a ball as i cradled my splitting head. I"ve moved past that, and its time you did, too.
