ART CHECK: Lesson from losing last molar tooth

I stand here, at the edge of my soul, its heat soaking into my skin. It is a harsh yet beautiful reminder of the fire that flows within my own transparent veins. The horizon shivers. The birds fall silent. Something sacred stirs.

Then I hear a throbbing whisper. A small, unsettling sound from deep inside the backside of my mouth. A loose tooth. A molar. The last of them all. I touch it with the tip of my thumb, and with a final, hesitant push, it gives way.

It falls into my waiting left palm. It is tiny, like a splinter of ivory in the vast landscape of my hand. But in its truth, it holds the entire meaning of the world.

I carefully wrap it in a thin cloth, its rough threads a stark contrast to the gleam of the lost bone. As the cloth envelops it, the world begins to change. Not a sudden or violent change. No. It is a slow, melting wave that consumes everything.

Suddenly. My late grandmother’s voice comes to me now as a memory woven into the ‘nyika’ of my soul. See, it emerges from the depths of years upon years bygone. Saying, very sudden and serious:

“Vuweleuvulila. Kuliakulia aujanawako (Feast on your youth).”

In the beginning, those words were like a simple song, the rhythm of our youth. We, the barefoot children of the earth, saw them as permission to run wild and free.

We chased the sun until its last thread of light disappeared. Our bodies never tired. Our lungs filled with clean, untainted air. I remember the red dust clinging to my bare feet, its tiny grains were amulets to our vitality.

We sat on the long grass, gazing at the unbelievably blue sky, tracing the deep, sleeping giant-like clouds. We toiled hard with our parents. Our hands were tough and raw, but in the ache of our muscles, we found a profound joy. The world had no limits, and time was a concept for adults alone. We did not worry. We did not wait. We simply were.

But now, with the tooth wrapped in the cloth in my hand, the meaning of my tiny kukhu’s words begins to shift. The ground beneath my feet starts to tremble, not with a violent or terrifying speed. It is terrifying in its feeling. The maize stalks, which were patient in their growth, now shiver and dry up in a single, sudden breath.

The raw maize bursts, its golden kernels scattering like shrapnel. The stalks crumble, turning to dust. The sun, which was a merciful deity, is now racing across the sky like a chariot of fire. I am afraid. A sharp, desperate fear swallows me whole.

I must run. I throw the cloth into the air. It is the same cloth in which the tooth is wrapped. I throw it high and run fast. My feet pound the earth, and the faces of people I once knew flash before my eyes like frames of a fast-moving film. I see its foolishness and its temporary blindness. I see the moments I lost, the many hours of idleness in the sheer sweetness of youth.

My body burns with the effort. The fire of fear blazes in my chest. I must chase it. I must get the tooth back. I must bring back time.

I leap over fallen Kimilongolo logs — logs that were once young trees. I push my way through thorny thickets, which I allowed to grow unsupervised, and their sharp points tear at me. The small stream I once crossed is now a swift, uncrossable river. I am forced to climb over rhombus-unstable stones.

This is the truth. Cold, harsh, merciless. Every decision I ever made, every moment I lost, every path I avoided, is now a burden I carry. The light is fading. The sky changes from bruised purple to a deep black. A thin, crescent moon rises. And in a single, silent beat, it fills and then wanes again. All of this happens in just one breath.

I am a witness to a strange, swift and desperate hunger of a world driven by motion. Then I see it. A grey piece of cloth. It is in the middle of the field but now it has no colour. It is filled with dust, stained by the sun, rain and time. And it is empty. The tooth is gone.

I fall to my knees. My strength has left me. I frantically search, my fingers digging into the dust. Nothing. Nothing at all. Just soil, well-crushed. The tooth has returned to the earth. I have reached the end of my race. I have lost.

I lie there, my kaleidoscopic glass-brittle body trembling with defeat. The world begins to slow down. The noise of chaos disappears. The wind, which was fast and harsh, now whispers gently. With love.

And in that silence, I understand.

I begin to really understand.

I understand that I am within the gentle beat of my own breath.

The tooth was not lost. It did not cease to exist. It just changed. It became soil. And my youth, like that tooth, was not lost. It changed. It became the wisdom that fills my mind. It became the strength in my bones. It became the stories that fill my heart. It became the weight in my stare, the confidence in my voice and the softness of my silence.

I look at the horizon. I see not the end of a journey. I see a distant light. I see it as a boundless perspective. For youth is a coin to be spent and a seed to be sown. And the wisdom that sprouts from it is the fruit a person will eat for their entire life.