Eight-legged Jonah

January 2002

I was standing in the office after everyone had left. I had just remembered the bottle of water I brought with me — a blue plastic bottle bought at a camping store with a narrow neck and a blue plastic, screw-on cap.

I was glad to have the water. Too much stress and too much soda leaves a kind of tacky film on the inside of my mouth that nothing washes away like water. (Except perhaps a lot of uncooked broccoli, but that is another story.) I lifted the bottle and felt the cool inrush and, very faintly, almost imperceptibly, a little something else. Perhaps some dust that had congealed in the bottle? A tiny island of mold that had grown into a soft wart-sized lump?

I swished the water between my teeth and tongue, feeling as it sluiced by for the small, soft, foreign thing. And felt it distinctly. Carefully, bringing my hand to my mouth, I swished the water again. This time more slowly, with care. And felt it, found it, and put it out on the tip of my finger. Some small foreign matter. Not mold. Maybe jellied dust. Perhaps a little of the broiled flounder sandwich I’d eaten at lunch had lodged in my teeth? But this spongy lump was almost the size of two grains of rice (maybe three), which is a fairly large chunk to have tucked away in one’s mouth without knowing. A little grey-green mass, wholly wet on the tip of my finger.

And then it moved.

I can’t tell you how surprising it is to have the little bits of your lunchtime sandwich move when they come out of your…