Student Writing- Mr. Masaharu Yamauchi-山内 雅晴

One Birthday’s event

　When I entered high school in the army camp that belonged to the Defense Ministry, a drill sergeant told us in a stately manner about basic army rules: one of them was that you weren’t allowed to go to the hospital outside the camp on your own initiative without permission from the camp’s dispensary in the case of becoming sick.
One day after 9 years had passed since joining the army, I had a toothache in the lower right area of my mouth. And following the army’s rule, I went to the camp’s dispensary. I entered the dentist’s room for the first time in one decade. After checking my mouth, a young dentist, who was a second lieutenant, said to me, “The cause of the toothache was a wisdom tooth that was in the lower right back of your mouth. To remove the pain, we need to pull it out. Since it has grown in horizontally, at this stage it would be very difficult to pull it out using my current technique. But fortunately, next week the most predominant dentist in the army, who is a cornel, is supposed to come. I advise you to make an appointment so he will treat you.” I agreed with his idea. The day I made the appointment was my birthday and I imagined it would be an ordinary day except that I would grow one year older.
The day came. I went to there with a feeling that I wanted to avoid pulling it out, but had no choice. And a nurse told me to sit in the patient’s chair and wait for the dentist. A few seconds later the dentist appeared and we exchanged greetings that were used in normal life in Japan. I was confident that I didn’t make him angry. He said, “Let’s get started. At first I’ll inject a few narcotics around the wisdom tooth, so you’ll feel little pain.” As far as I remember, at least two shots he injected didn’t work. Although I said they didn’t work, he ignored my plea. He tried to keep pulling it out using a special tool like a big screwdriver. I couldn’t help but cry. I imagined it was torture or an operation in an abandoned field hospital. If it was torture I would definitely have told everything I knew or done what he said. But he kept doing it in silence. It would be called death throes. Over one hour later, I realized I had survived.