My doctor assured me that the white gunk congealing at the back of my throat was not tonsillitis after all. It was merely a build-up of tonsil stones; small, calcified clumps of debris ensnared in the tonsillar crypts. They were harmless, she promised, and waved off my concern for my torn, bloody throat with a pamphlet boasting the Six Best Water Picks for Under A Hundred Bucks.

I purchased Water Pick No. 4 from the list. It was a device hitherto unknown to me, but confidently declared it could evict even the most stubborn stones. I eagerly angled it towards my swollen tonsils. A limp stream of water nudged the inflamed surface, but otherwise did nothing to dislodge the debris.

I returned to my previous extraction method. Crouching in front of the bathroom mirror, jaw wrenched so wide it looked dislocated. One hand glaring a torch down the back of my gullet, the other excavating pungent pellets from the crevices. It was a painful endeavor, and left my throat crimson as a raw kidney. But the process begot some temporary relief from the maddening, constant sensation of having something stuck in my throat.

As the weeks wore on, both the size and frequency of my tonsil stones increased. They began smaller than caviar, with a faint funk of morning breath. Now they were as large as polyps, secreting a bile-yellow liquid and the nauseating stench of rotted meat. Some stones took almost an hour to extract, and I began neglecting social obligations to spend the evening mining my own throat.

The thought that I’d been going about my regular activities full of these foul nuggets was mortifying. Were my sales lagging because their odors plagued my clients whenever I spoke? Were they the reason my dates shirked from my attempts to kiss them? Each bloodstained morsel I spat up seemed responsible for another failure.

One storm-beaten evening, after eschewing an insistent invitation to dinner at my parents’ house, I was besieged by an especially obstinate stone. No amount of scraping or probing could displace it. I gargled enough saltwater to fill an ocean. But it clung to my throat like a mollusk.

It grew difficult to breathe. The stone was smug and snug in the fissures of my tonsils. I clawed at the surrounding flesh, yet it remained unperturbed. I swigged a stinging cap of mouthwash and a violent cough tore through my esophagus.

A single, decaying molar rattled into the sink.

My hand trembled towards my teeth. All were accounted for. Yet the rotting mass in the sink was unmistakably a human molar.

I swallowed a beam of torchlight. The roof of my throat, once plump and pink, resembled the barnacled hull of a boat. Rows upon rows of festering white stones were encrusted in every crack and cranny. Like barnacles, the calcified stones had a dark, gaping center.

In each blackened center sat a moldering, human tooth.