FLASH FICTION WEEK
Runner-up
BY FRANCES LEFKOWITZ
Copyright is held by the author.
NOTHING SADDER than a broken tooth, the perfect irreplaceable thing cracked, chipped, shattered, gone, leaving nothing but a jagged hole. It will make a mother cry like nothing else will. A broken foot will hinder your ability to move, and other snapped bones will scuttle your plans for a while. But a bone is not just firm and white; it is a living factory, the inner cells working round the clock to repair itself even when it’s not broken. A tooth is also solid and white, but that rounded rectangle with a root lingering like an iceberg under the gum: once it grows in, it will not grow, ever, again.
And so you are left with a tell-tale sign of something questionable that you reveal every time you smile. And so you avoid smiling; you just don’t want to have to watch as your new acquaintances drop their eyes down your face, get snagged by the tooth, and then run their mind through the sordid possibilities, wondering if it was carelessness or recklessness, hard luck, brawling, or battering that stole your perfectness.
Out the window of the Mexican train, however, you see something so funny you can’t help but peel your lips back: it’s a cactus that looks exactly like an old lady who is leaning back, laughing loud and wide, one hand on her hip, the other in the “oh, come on” wrist flick. Her posture makes you think she’s wearing an apron and carrying a hankie, ready to dab at happy tears. Next to her is a taller cactus neighbour, in slacks, leaning in, telling the joke that sets her off.
You must have emitted an open-mouthed sound, because the porter’s eyes catch on your tooth. But this man doesn’t pretend to ignore it. Instead, he runs his finger along his own front line, where the same tooth is a ragged diagonal, a mirror image of yours.
Now your finger goes to your own gap, and your eyes lock onto his. You have found your sibling in brokenness, in unexplainable accident, in some flash action that is no one’s fault but leaves a trace forever. You and your twin do not speak the same language, but your mouths are open and you are folding in toward each other, reaching for the missing piece. Meanwhile, the cactus goes on laughing, as if she knew, all along, this would happen.
***

Frances Lefkowitz is the author of To Have Not: A Memoir, as well as essays and stories in Tin House, The Sun, Superstition Review and other publications. Her work has been named Notable for Best American Essays three times, and once for the Pushcart Prize. Born and raised in San Francisco, and educated on the East Coast, she now lives in Northern California.