David Gairdner - Moving

Mother Vesna and Dr Michael, Mark’s Dad, kept complaining about burgers on the way to Jindabyne. Blah blah blah.

-        Mark liked moving, anyway.

-        Each time they moved he got to sit in the truck.

-        Mark said he wanted to be a truck driver to his dad.

-        Dad told him that it was not the right fit for the Donavon family.

-        Dentistry was the family line.

-        Cement barrels were not in Mark’s future.

-        ‘I don’t want to be a dentist,’ Mark said.

-        Dad shrieked. ‘You think I wanted to be a dentist? I didn’t, but I did anyway, because that’s what my family demanded of me. You will do the same!’

-        Years later Dr Mark thought of that day, as he patted the paste into my cavity, wishing he was filling cement into a new footpath. Dentistry to him was something minute, toy sized.

-        The drill was a tiny jackhammer.

-        Removing my tooth was not like removing furniture at all.

-        He felt so diminutive.

-        A real man does not handle teeth.

-        He returned home and said he wanted to move.

-        His son looked at him and asked ‘Will we be going somewhere so you can get a new job?’

-        He hesitated. ‘No!’