So she lies beside her husband in bed, and puts herself back in the car park. Donal’s breath quickening. How powerful she is, every tiny movement of her tongue controlling the flow of his breathing. Powerful too, to be playful with him, when he is so suddenly serious. And the danger, the exquisite danger. Any moment, someone could come.

‌Without

The painkillers Mrs Akbar prescribed are no longer working. Either the pain has grown to such intensity that it overpowers them, or there is a conflict with the Anesthine. Whatever the reason, Logan can no longer live with his buried teeth. Several times a day, he is jarred by such a fierce bolt of electricity that he cries out, spilling his coffee, startling the dog. The throbbing in his jaw colours his work with distraction and his dreams with the black cartoons of nightmare: stairs dissolve into lift shafts; familiar faces morph into hideous corpses. There is no question: the wisdoms must be surgically removed.

You must read the forms properly before you sign them, says the girl on reception.

Logan skips over the legalese until his eye snags on Risks and Contraindications. But the phrases ‘permanent nerve damage’ and ‘mild to severe impairment of jaw function’ trigger the Anesthine; his brain is washed into blankness. The receptionist clicks her tongue on the roof of her mouth in an impatient percussion. After four attempts to read the paragraph, Logan is shocked by another jolt from the nerve in his jawbone, and recognizes that the forgetfulness it provokes is irrelevant. Torture must work this way, he thinks, as he surrenders and signs.

The wisdoms are extracted. A needle full of anaesthetic; the stinging jab and the numbness he finds hard to trust. Wait, he thinks, wait. Has it taken? But the woman is sure of herself. She takes up her tools and digs deep into his gums. A terrible tugging and cracking – he can feel everything but the pain – and a running tide of blankness as wave after wave of Anesthine knocks the spikes of fear down flat.

Afterwards, though his face is numb and his tongue lies in his mouth like a paralysed caterpillar, he can nevertheless move his jaw; rinse and spit, mumble the vowel-sounds of thank you to Mrs Akbar. Nothing bad has happened, and when the deep wounds in his gum have healed, and the stitches have melted, he will be free of pain.