Where did all the Dentists Go?

34th Parallel

One morning after we’d been together eight years, Miss D announced that we must flee the city. This notion, she said, had assailed her dreams over a period of some weeks, and indeed she had recently seemed pensive and distracted. I enjoyed living in the city, especially given the easy access to material, blackmarket and otherwise, for my project, but Miss D, whose dreams could be forceful indeed, was adamant. Can you not see what’s happening? she said. Escape is necessary! She rarely employed exclamation marks, but when she did I knew better than to contradict her.

But escape to where? Miss D began to take long, rambling trips on her motorcycle, camping out, often gone weeks at a time, and it was during one of these excursions that she came upon M…, which, she told me later, did not appear on any of the maps she carried nor was it recorded by her several GPS devices. She spent an afternoon walking the streets and alleys of M…, after which she determined it was the place to escape to. Why? I asked.

It may appear my coming upon M… was accidental, she replied, but I do not believe so. The couple who adopted me from the orphanage were physicists of a sort and taught me that the universe is full of mysteries, one being that what might appear to be a chance encounter generally isn’t. Which I believe applies in this case, M… being just the sort of place of escape I have been seeking. Two other points recommend it, she added. Number One, as I was walking about, I saw many people, but none of them inquired into my business. Bravo! Privacy is to be cherished any day, but these days especially.

Number Two? I prompted. Number Two, she said, no children. None at all. I started to ask about this, but she abruptly walked away to find the tool she needed to help the super fix the elevator in our ancient, crumbling apartment building. So, the village of M… it was. We left behind the clamorous city of my birth—whose noise, scurry, and frequent riots had never bothered me, just the opposite, in fact—and set off across the prairie for the village that was to be our blessed home going forward. It was an afternoon of blazing sun and hard blue sky that hurt the eyes. Through the chest-high grass the billowing wind cut dark stampede trails

Buffalo, I said to Miss D. She was looking all around with that penetrating gaze of hers flaming through the thick lenses of her goggles. I don’t know if I ever told you this, she said, but sometimes I dream I’m a Sioux warrior chasing bison on a rugged pony with my flint-tipped arrows and painted face. No, you never told me, I replied, but I wish you had.

Miss D nodded. We might be better off these days, she mused, if there were more Sioux warriors on the scene, given the number of people who should be scalped, but all the Sioux, their hope for the future dead, took that last, long ride west many, many years ago. They understood how things work.

M… was in the middle of endless grasslands many, many miles west of our former city. On our arrival the general impression I acquired was one of bedragglement and ennui. Sagging buildings, fly-specked windows, empty store fronts, dusty streets. The wind carried the aroma of dust and the ghosts of cowboys and Indians.

Present-day men and woman were sitting on benches along the sidewalk, in general bearing the bland, unfixed gazes of people who’ve been in a waiting room too long. A number of these people were holding up newspapers which they might or might not actually be reading. The only headlines I could make out concerned going-out-of-business sales. There were no boys riding bicycles with baseball mitts hooked to their belts nor any little girls squealing about frogs; as Miss D had noted, this village had no children. A few people were walking around but didn’t appear to be headed anywhere in particular, just passing time. A train sat supinely at the station, the track ending some little distance ahead of it. A young woman leaned from an upstairs window while a gingham curtain billowed sadly around her, and from this it was clear she pined for someone who had left her.

Although I was a bit worried about finding the necessary parts for my project, the state of the village didn’t bother Miss D. Rather, as she carefully examined what in my view were our dilapidated surroundings, she would express her satisfaction with a variety of sotto voce comments. Oh yes. No need for pretense. Just as I hoped. Indeed, our arrival seemed to have restored her normally sanguine mood. Now she examined everything with wide-eyed glee and pointed at this and that with childish wonder. The pining woman especially intrigued her. This was, I assumed at the time, because she had studied most of history’s strange disappearances such as those of William Cantelo, Wallace Fard Muhammad, Joan Risch, Ambrose Bierce, and Cotah Ramaswami. And, as she pointed out, those are just the ones we hear about because they are famous. There are many, many more. It is possible, she added, that this phenomenon has something to do with parallel universes, which, as you know, I have been studying. But I believe something more fundamental to be the cause. That pining woman, for example. What does the expression on her face tell you? I was about to comment, but Miss D held up her hand for quiet and pointed to a house.

It was an old house of two storeys with a tower, set off by itself on the south edge of the village. In front of it was a large, drooping tree, a weeping willow, which seemed fitting. This was because the house looked to
me as if it was quivering in despair and might fall down at any moment. Its windows were sightless, its doors should have been hung with exit signs. I was about to convey this impression to Miss D, but I saw she was already enthralled. I should have known. Collapse and ruin had always enticed her.

We soon learned that the owner had departed two years ago, leaving no heirs or instructions regarding the property. Just as I suspected, Miss D said. Thus, we shall take possession. As I said before, when Miss D set her mind on something there was no turning back, so take possession we did.

We began to furnish it with items found at the area’s abundant garage sales. This was because Miss D preferred old things; also there was nothing new for sale in M… Meanwhile, we lived in a conical tent beside the weeping willow, Miss D’s idea. We live on a prairie, she explained; we should embrace it. Literally, she added sternly, and showed me the posture she deemed appropriate. Some day, she told me as we flattened ourselves on the grass, fingers digging into the soil, it may be useful, for you especially, to have something to hold onto.

What our neighbors thought of this behavior, I do not know, because generally we were only aware of them as eyes peering through briefly parted curtains. But one afternoon as I came down from my tower workshop, I found Miss D in discussion with a woman. I gathered, presently, that this woman was on her slow way home after walking downtown for a teeth-cleaning appointment with her dentist only to discover him gone like her last dentist and the one before that, the office deserted and boarded up. Heading home, she had seen our tent and stopped by on the off-chance it had something to do with departed dentists. Miss D had informed her, however, that the tent had nothing to do with dentists but rather was meant to invoke Indians and buffalo, symbols of which she had painstakingly painted on the canvas. Of course, Miss D added as an afterthought, it is true that the Sioux and buffalo did disappear, so in that sense, at least, they are like your various dentists.

Oh, I see, the woman was saying to Miss D as I approached. This woman was a dried-out woman with features scoured into sharp edges by what I assumed was the cutting prairie wind. It was obvious she had been destroyed by love and now, dreams gone, was just waiting for the moment when she could let herself be carried away by that wind. In fact, she was just now explaining to Miss D that she once had a boyfriend, a fine-looking fellow who was pursuing his dream of selling Bibles door to door but was finding it difficult since everyone in M… already had a Bible and boxes of abandoned Bibles filled the basement of the deserted church. Then one day, the boyfriend was no longer there. Gone, totally (although for a long time she imagined she could still see his shadow). And now the various dentists gone too, now and over the years. I’m thinking maybe I should… she started to say but saw me coming and scurried off with a horrified look as if she had just been confronted by an ax-murderer.

Yes, her boyfriend’s shadow, Miss D said to me later. Lost love is like that. The look in her eyes told me not to inquire further. The day came when we could move into the house. Miss D was a whirlwind, planting flowers and decorating the shrubs with ancient artifacts she’d acquired during her years in Southeast Asia. (She thought about placing her 1946 Indian Chief with skirted fenders in the middle of the yard as additional adornment but decided against this, she told me, because the motorcycle had an unfortunate tendency to roam by itself. Afraid it might decide to follow the Sioux, she confined it to the shed.) When she was done in the yard, she summoned me from my tower where I was working on the emergency kill switch for my project. (It turned out my worries about finding the necessary parts in M… were unfounded; the village, unsurprisingly, was replete with junk yards.) As we stood admiring our old house, I congratulated Miss D. A capital job, I told her. Everything is now complete! Of course, I wonder if we could talk about…

No, she replied, children would be a distraction. They have dreams, you see, and they’re always chattering about them and the wonderful life ahead. Ha! I am reconciled to the way things are, which includes you. I do want to note here that I rated our marriage as more or less satisfactory, given the current state of things and despite the issue of children and a couple of other things. Generally, I felt a measure of fondness for Miss D and I believe she felt likewise toward me. Of course, there were also those times when I would want to… But that is a whole different story involving why I started my project. Suffice it to say, working with my hands on my project and thinking about the day it would be completed always saw me through those trying times when I would want to…

Anyway, Miss D now decided to make certain alterations to the house: a deck, a gallery, a gazebo, bigger kitchen. We might as well be comfortable while we are here, she pointed out. I voiced my encouragement. After all, I had my project; why shouldn’t she have hers? Without another word, she set off toward the center of the village where we had seen all the people sitting around or walking aimlessly or leaning out of windows. Such a small village, but so many layabouts! Miss D and I had discussed this after we had made our initial inspection of M…

Why are they all here?

I had asked. I had assumed Miss D was thinking the answer might have something to do with multiple universes, a favorite topic of hers, as I pointed out earlier. I knew she had been studying the villagers and I wondered what conclusions she was reaching. I could imagine her brain working away. I could almost see the equations tumbling through it as if propelled by a leaf blower. (She was, by the way, in the process of repairing ours.)

But all she had said was, Why are we here?

At any rate, Miss D, having gone in search of labor for her projects, returned with a skinny young man. (My first thought when I saw him was that he needed pancakes but Miss D prepared pancakes only on certain holidays.) Shortly thereafter, a sputtering truck arrived and deposited piles of lumber scavenged from deserted homes. That afternoon, the skinny young man began to build a backyard deck to Miss D’s specifications.

Meanwhile I continued work on my project, the wiring for which was nearly complete. Downstairs Miss D puttered away on the collection of discarded small motors she was rebuilding. At least once a day we would come together in the backyard to check the progress of the deck and to examine the weather trampling across the endless prairie upon which the village of M… cringed. The deck progressed but the weather remained the same: the vast bowl of the sky a deadly blue while beneath it moaned a tireless, unforgiving wind that exhausted the ears. I had been noticing Miss D’s mood changing again; perhaps it was this surly weather.

The skinny young man, maybe hoping for platters of pancakes, had managed to sink pilings and lattice them with cross members. Now planking had begun to appear. Miss D pointed out a corner which she said would be perfect for her telescope, the lenses for which she had begun furiously grinding as if she had set a deadline for herself. After a time, the deck was half completed. Miss D and I spent an evening on this finished section engaging in a poetry duel. She won, of course.

There in the starless dark, the poise, the hover, There with vast wings across the cancelled skies, There in the sudden blackness, the black pall Of nothing, nothing, nothing—nothing at all.

I should have known the answer, of course, but could not summon it. Before she could hide it, I saw the stony look on Miss D’s face. What was going on with her? But I couldn’t worry about that; I had to focus on my project.
The next morning, the skinny young man failed to arrive. The absence of hammering enveloped us, a forlorn emptiness.

We waited.

Nothing.

The skinny young man had quite disappeared.

I expected as much, Miss D said, and proceeded to walk downtown where, she told me later, she peered at passersby and through the foggy windows of bars, stores, and offices even though many of them were closed and abandoned, in search of another workman. Their ranks, she found, were sadly diminished.

She did arrive back home, however, accompanied by an older man with his hair in a ponytail. As they crossed the lawn, they were arguing about the Rosenbergs. I quickly fled upstairs to work on my project, the subject of the Rosenbergs being one of those I always avoided around Miss D: she could become exceedingly overwrought! (Their poor children! she would exclaim. Too soon deprived of their youthful hopes!) But she and the ponytailed man seemed to be getting along fine.

At any rate, I soon heard a hammer once more banging away. From my tower, I watched the ponytailed man busily working away at completing the deck. But I noticed that every so often, he would pause in his work and gaze off to the west, across that wind-rippled prairie that traveled on and on to the end of the world. Was that where the disappearing people had gone?

I thought this would be an interesting topic to discuss with Miss D, but she had gone to the hardware store, which was having a going-out-of-business sale, in search of a piece to repair either her telescope or the toilet. (I hadn’t quite heard her clearly.) So, I locked the door of my work room and went down to the ponytailed man. He took one more whack at a nail and laid the hammer aside. There, he said wearily, this here deck be finished.

Well, I said, a good job indeed. So, what do you make of all these disappearing people?

He stood in somber thought. His face was lined, eyes sun-bleached. His big, wide teeth were so densely packed it was a wonder he was able to force words out from behind them. What do I make of it? he said after a moment, speaking slowly and with obvious effort—oh, those stout teeth! It’s like I told your missus: people come here for a reason. Then they gotta make up their mind. Maybe it takes 10 minutes, maybe it takes 10 years, y’know?
Make up their mind? About what?

The ponytailed man looked at me as if I were a dolt. Why, he said finally, in an exasperated manner, it’s because they got choices! There’s the Midnight Movers, but that’s pretty expensive. Or the Society for Vanishing, maybe The Way to Elsewhere Cooperative. And, of course, some are do-it-yourselfers, like your workmen…

I thought a moment. But where do they… I started to ask.

You don’t know nothing, do you? he replied and gave me another exasperated look. Then he picked up his tools and trudged off to begin work on the front porch that Miss D had determined would be the next project to enhance our old house.
Two days later, the front porch unfinished, the ponytailed man was gone.

And that’s the way it went.

Miss D would walk down to the center of M… She would return with a likely candidate from the diminishing numbers available. There would be hammering, sawing, drilling, etc etc etc. Then the activity would abruptly cease. The front porch, for instance, was finished by a fat man with a limp who then went to work on the gazebo Miss D thought would add a grace note to the backyard. He was there hammering away when I looked down from my tower at noon and gone when next I looked down at one o’clock. Then there was a young man with a club foot who was set to work finishing the gazebo; he was nearly finished when he too was simply gone.

Yes, that’s the way it went.

It was baffling.

One evening as we were sitting on the deck waiting for Venus to rise—this being one of those times when the planet glowed especially brightly, Miss D’s spirits were better than they had been for some days—I raised the issue. These men who came here and worked and then just didn’t come again, I said. Do you ever see them on your visits downtown?

No, Miss D said, concentrating on the complicated equations she was trying to solve on her iPad, they’ve chosen to go, of course.

But why? I continued. Where are they going?

Miss D looked up with annoyance. You really don’t know? she said.

I told her I did not.

She studied the computer screen, pondered, made a notation, started to say something then thought better of it. A habit of hers I found particularly annoying.

The days passed. Miss D continued her treks downtown, returning with more vanishers, a category that now included women. Generally, they made a pretense of working on various parts of the old house, but pretty much nothing of value was accomplished before they went off to… wherever it is they went off to. Meanwhile, I was proceeding with my project. What joy I felt, as I began to fit the pieces together, screwing screws, soldering electronic parts. At last my life would be complete! My woes banished!

At any rate, I was so busy I had little time to spend with Miss D. But finally the day came when I soldered the last little diode into place. Done at last! Eager to hear Miss D’s reaction, I leaned out the window of my tower and saw her below in close, animated conversation with a stout woman leaning on a cane. I hurried down and found Miss D alone. I looked all around but all I could see was a trail heading off through the tall grass, empty and endless, dissolving into the far horizon.

I walked a little way along the trail, thinking I might discover some clue, but there was nothing.

I returned, ready to ask Miss D about it, but she was walking away toward the house.

When I entered the parlor, she was sitting on the sofa, pouring tea from her silver Iranian samovar into delicate bone china cups decorated with mythical beasts. Her favorite Beethoven sonata, the 23rd in F minor, played by Gieseking, was on the gramophone she had built. She set out the cups, then leaned back and closed her eyes.

I sipped the tea, then set down my cup. Miss D, I said, I would like to discuss something.

Her eyes remained closed.

Your project? she said. Your new diet? The role Of Tiresias in The Wasteland?

No, I replied. What is bothering me is the people who disappear. So I want to ask you again: why do they come to M…? Why do they then go away? Where do they go? What is the answer? Several moments passed. She still did not open her eyes, but a tiny smile tickled her lips. I wondered if she had perhaps fallen asleep and was dreaming of things to break so she could repair them.

Buffalo? I ventured. The end of the world? Things breaking? Sioux warriors?

She murmured something I could not make out. I leaned close. Her lips moved again. Very softly, she explained it all to me.
I sat back. Yes, of course.

As she watched me, the tiny smile reappeared, a tiny mocking smile.

Mulling all this over, I went to the gramophone to turn over Mr Gieseking. I heard the closing of the door. When I turned back, Miss D was gone.

I called out but received no answer. I waited to see if I would hear the sound of her motorcycle, but there was only an immense, annihilating silence all around.

Yes, she was indeed gone.

But all’s well that ends well, I suppose.

From my work room upstairs in the tower came a long rattle then a drawn-out yowl and finally a soft, conciliatory entreaty. The sound was perfect. In my opinion, there is no emptiness that cannot be filled—with something.