Had another dental nightmare yesterday. Some fiend was trying to extract three teeth without anaesthesia and I couldn't scream because his hands were in my mouth and there was blood and spit all around. Been a while since I had one of those. But then something weirder happened. The cavities where the teeth had been were hurting like nobody's business so I put an ice cube in my mouth, and all of a sudden I was trapped in it.

I was trapped in an ice cube.

Like so.



Now if you've ever looked at an ice cube closely there's this little place in the middle that looks like a lot of fine silver lines have been bundled up together, like a mass of steel wool, only thinner and more intricate. That's where I was. Deep inside this freezing mesh. And everything kept getting colder and colder around me but my mouth was still on fire because the ice cube was outside, not inside, and all the while the cube kept falling through this volcanic-crater kind of vortex. There were flames outside the ice cube and inside my head. And all the while that dratted layer of ice all around me was freezing my fingers numb. But the cube was melting and getting smaller and smaller due to the heat outside. And pretty soon I'd be hurtling through the fire on my own, only I didn't know when.

This morning my mother had the gall to suggest it was a hot flush. The effrontery. The insolence. You'd think she'd know the difference between sweating and feeling so cold you want your blood to be put into a saucepan and heated till it simmers. You'd also think she'd be aware of how old I am. But then, to hand it to her, it's the perfect comeback for all the menopause jokes I've been making this past year.