James dug at his teeth, reaching deep under his gums and pried the sterling cap off his molar - with a screwdriver. The rusty taste of blood flooded his mouth as he set the silver cap on the edge of the sink with his bloody fingers.

The music still did not stop.

For two days the garbled mix of shitty Top 40 pop music had been in his head. Every hour, on the hour, the words "Oom Bop!" were being spewed from his mouth unknowingly by the pre-pubescent Hanson brothers. As it was, he had already hated that song. After two days he had come to a conclusion that Hanson must die a horrible death, along with Mariah Carey, Britney Spears and the Artist Formerly Known As Prince. They were all living inside his mouth, wriggling through his brain, having been placed there by some unkown D.J. If James could only find out which radio station was playing, he planned to pay them a little visit during business hours.

James had a pre-ban SKS leaning against the wall in his closet, two banana clips duct taped upside down to each other for fast reloading and six stripper clips. This sleeping friend, with its folding military stock would be concealed under his trench coat as he strolled through the front door of the radio station.

James would walk up to the receptionist on the phone and tap his fingertips impatiently on the reception booth and take note of the security cameras and maniacally wave at them while he waited. After some minutes, the receptionist would finally set the receiver down and ask in an annoying voice "Can I help you, sir?"

Then James would belch Britney Spears at her simply by opening his mouth. The woman would look astonishingly at him and up would come his friend from inside the trench coat. Instead of emitting Britney Spears or Celine Dion, the SK would speak the quick and loud "blap!,blap!,blap!" of a three round burst that would then tear three holes through the woman's body.

Hearing the noise, the D.J. would rush out of his sound booth, only to stop dead in his tracks in the doorway to piss himself. There he would meet three more of James' little friends and collapse against the door frame with a stupid look on his dead face and piss running from his pant leg; rather like John Travolta's corpse slumped over the tub in "Pulp Fiction".

James would then proceed into the sound booth where he would lambaste the place; bullets tearing through the sound board and punching through rows of carefully shelved compact disks until Britney Spears no longer spoke and only James' own crazed voice came from his mouth.

Then he would walk casually out of the radio station after waving good-bye to the security cameras and even if he happened to get arrested, he could get off on an insanity plea. There was no reason he couldn't, he thought, since that one guy down in Frisco got off two murder charges by pleading temporary insanity that resulted from eating too many Twinkies. After all, James was already certifiable and was required by law to take a dose of two pink "happy pills" every morning. Surely if that guy could beat a double murder wrap based on the defense of Twinkies, James could surely get off for insanity.

Still, he thought, sometimes it does make sense to chicken out.

James had torn out another sterling cap and the music had still not stopped.

The toxic music was not James’s real concern. It was a mere petty annoyance, but if his teeth had played a decent selection of punk rock, or at least Mojo Nixon, it would not be such a bad thing. His real concern was that something sinister seemed to be going on inside his body.

This had all started last year after a car wreck. James had been driving his Pinto Wagon down Interstate 5. The car suddenly jerked, snapped its rear axle and the momentum of the speed sent the car ass over tea-kettle until the car flew over an embankment and into the Rogue River below, where it landed upside down.

James later awoke in the hospital with an array of broken bones, but he figured that this was par for the course.

Ever since he left the hospital, strange things had begun to happen. Every bad thing in and out of his mouth seemed to end up on his employment record. James felt a draw to do things contrary to his normal behavior. He found himself always going to work on time and he never fucked off on the job anymore. He quit drinking and even quit smoking pot and inhaling lines of white powder up his nose. He felt compelled to watch football on the television, which he had always despised prior. He felt as if he should respect the police and yes, he even wanted to agree with everything George W. Bu$h said too, even though James knew damn well that the guy was a fascist, hill-jack, redneck with an I.Q. on par with a rock.

It was as if he was a puppet and someone else was pulling his strings.

James had heard horror stories about the government micro-chipping people and parents having dentists put bugging devices into their kid's tooth fillings so they could track them if they wound up on the back of a milk carton.

When Britney and Celine invaded his mouth, James became convinced that something was just not right.

 James pried another cap off and set it on the sink, but the missing tooth did not help.

He went to his toolbox and grabbed a pair of pliers and returned to the bathroom. He tore the first molar out by the roots and eyed the bloody hunk of enamel before dropping it into the sink. The tooth made a single clank against the porcelain before tumbling down the drain.

In his reflection in the bathroom mirror, James saw it in the crater where his molar had been; a thin candy cane striped wire peeking out from the newly hewn orifice in his bleeding mouth.

James grabbed the pair of needle-nose pliers out of his toolbox and caught hold of the candy striped artificial worm infecting his gums and gave it a slow tug. Slowly but surely, the bloodstained wire began to come to him by the inch and then finally by the foot as it fell into a bloody coil at James’ feet while he pulled more and more of it from inside his head. James felt it tug, then slowly rip like bleeding velcro sinew from the base of his brain. Hand over hand, James pulled upon the wire, with it coming electrical pins that were painfully tearing loose from his brain and then finally from his spinal cord, which sent shocks of spasms through his body as each metal pin was torn from the network of his nervous system.

Finally, the last wire tore free when James shoved the needle-nose pliers up his nose and gave it a brutal tug that sent streams of blood cascading onto the huge tangle of wire at his feet. The Hanson Brothers had gone and so had Britney and Celine Dion, leaving James only with his welcomed silence. His body was bleeding and shattered, but at least he was free.

©2002 Kailleaugh Andersson

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Kailleaugh Andersson's Gothica
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