While writing my report, my tooth cracked. I had a lot of work to do in the morning, and in the afternoon I had to be done with my report. The stress of having a deadline that was coming right up, the stress of having something to do immediately, the stress cracked my tooth because I ground my teeth together until a tooth on the right side of my mouth splintered like an ice cube stomped by a lumberjack in cork boots.

I wrote this:

My cat is my cat, and my neighbors spend too much time petting my cat. My cat is not loyal, but cat loyalty is not a value in the way that is for a dog. I am not a dog person. I think to describe a person by the type of animal they are is a disservice to the animal. Dogs are no more people than cats are dogs and ants are trombones. My cat is my property as much as my car or my television and should not be used without my explicit permission. If you want to use my cat, you need to give me something in return. Pure neighborliness is not enough. I want folding money folded into quarters and placed into an envelope — I can provide envelopes for money — and stuffed into a tiny slot in a box that says, Fold Your Bill into the Correct Shape. Once you have paid your money, you may pet my cat. One might turn to the cat and wonder how the cat regards every Sally and Fred in the neighborhood taking their ice rocket stained hands and running them over my cat’s white and brown fur. Mind you the cat knows that after they have left their smudges and stray e-coli that my cat will unroll his tongue and proceed to lick his own fur into a reasonable facsimile of clean. My cat is mine. And don’t you put your filthy hands on his glistening fur without appropriately compensating me.

After I had finished my report on my cat, I turned in the paper. I left the office. I called the dentist from the sidewalk. He could fit me in after hours for double the rate. I could hardly stand the nerve pain. Bones are innervated with sensory neurons. Tooth pain is pain directly in the centers of feeling. The dentist rested me on the chair. I felt a relief as he injected a prick that pulled the tissue from my jaw. He cut the shards of pain from my face. At dusk, I left disoriented and numb for the street.

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This is part four of a five part series of collaboration between Taibi Mastelse and me. She provided five collages, and I wrote text in response. We passed the pictures and text back and forth, and they are.