Gary stood in the kitchen, staring at the drawer.

The drawer stared back.

Inside it lived the tools. Not medical tools. Tools. The sort designed for shelving units and badly-assembled furniture. But tools were tools, weren’t they? People used pliers for all sorts of things. Teeth were just… stubborn nails.

He opened his phone and typed: how to pull out a tooth yourself

The results were mixed.

Some sites were alarmist. Some were cheerful. One appeared to be written by a man who’d definitely done this more than once and learned nothing. Gary clicked that one.

The instructions were surprisingly simple. Numb the area. Get a firm grip. Pull fast. Confidence was key. Confidence had never let Gary down before, apart from all the times it had.

He opened the drawer. Pliers. Clean-ish. He wiped them on a tea towel that might once have been white.

His heart pounded. His jaw throbbed. This felt big. Monumental. Like one of those decisions people referenced later when explaining how things went wrong.

He raised the pliers toward his mouth, hesitated, then lowered them again.

Maybe not immediately. Maybe he needed to psych himself up. Or maybe this was insanity and he should back away slowly.

What does Gary do?

Go for it immediately → Page 10

Hesitate and delay → Page 12