I’d felt its eyes on me again— that slight prickle at the nape of the neck. Surely it was still wet (I’d only used it an hour ago). It must have sat glittering beside the sink, watching me when I hung up the phone. I could feel it. Similar to when a man sees you across the room— you don’t see him necessarily, but you feel him: natural prey and predator instincts.
Unknowingly sealing my fate, I’d ordered it online three months ago. Fate, like the Sonicare toothbrush, (and certain kinds of men), can be very controlling. So then, there I was, headed on a trajectory I may never escape. (A harsh truism that I feel I must accept). My mother has mentioned a time or two my terrible taste in men. Now we can add “toothbrushes” to the list of my blind spots, too.
The first time it happened I didn’t think anything of it. I opened my eyes one night to see the toothbrush on the pillow beside me. It had been laying bristles up. Its gaze was steadily fixed towards the ceiling, motionless. It wasn’t my first thought that the brush had moved itself, or even the second. Truthfully, I was uneasy that someone had been in my home. It was placed so gingerly and centered.
By the second time I found that ghoul on my pillow, feeling skittish, I circulated my house, checking all the locks and windows. Locked—everything. Certainly, my mind was playing tricks on itself. It should have been enough to pacify me, like a frog in a cool creek, but I still felt strange. There was a presence in the air that I couldn’t place. By the third instance, I was made aware of the culprit. I was awoken by a tickle in my nose. I opened my eyes slowly, fearful of what I might see. The brush was front and center so that my eyes crossed. I screamed as it switched on and began buzzing against my face. My arms flailed frantically as I grappled with the very strong toothbrush. Finally, I gained leverage. I grabbed the plastic freak and chucked it across the room where it hit the wall. It stopped buzzing.
The late-night cars had stopped zooming by my window. I could hear the cold trickle of a creek down the street. I set the phone in place and hit record. I switched the lights out. I heard frogs croak in broken unison. To this, I fell asleep. The following morning I woke alone. I had slept still in the darkness, never tossing even once.
The footage showed a Frankenstein Brush. It threw itself from the sink (it was expensive!) landing with a loud clang, and rolling across the tile. Down it brought two poorly screwed-shut medications, scattering across the floor. My hands shook as I watched the macabre Toy Story in horror: The toothbrush slowly, loudly, clanged over the small white doses of reality, somehow putting enough force on them to turn them to dust as it went. I watched my toothbrush’s hair tickle the floor as it rolled across the white tile. I thought of my lips wrapped around its base and wasn’t sure who I was more embarrassed for: it or me.
I paused the footage where the toothbrush had stopped to see, in real-time, it was no longer there. I rose to the bathroom to find it sitting on the sink, dry, ready. Mortified with myself, I turned the sink on and held the brush beneath the running water. I applied mint toothpaste and put it into my mouth. I began to gag. In turn, the brush clicked on, buzzing.
The next night, I lay witness and awake to the toothbrush’s journey to find me. This time, it dove off the counter head-first. It rolled across the tile over what was left of the crushed pills. Unlike the night before, it made it to the carpet in my room. It angled itself against the wall and began to knock itself, over and over again. Revving itself up it clanged and smashed.
Finally, it hit hard enough against the crown molding to gain correct leverage. It smacked itself upright, glistening in the darkness. I sat up in bed, shaking. It was unrelenting. The toothbrush loomed in my silent and dark room before beginning to buzz, its bristles shivering at me. I started to cry. I may have even pleaded. The buzzing sound increased. It reached a shrill timber that resembled a drilling. It made me think of a strange man’s hand in my mouth. The dentist’s maybe.
After the night I took the video, the toothbrush became emboldened. Some mornings, it would position itself an inch from my face so I’d awaken to the now putrid smell of mint. I’d go cross-eyed to its bleach-white bristles when I opened my eyes. Other times it’d scrape its wet whiskers against my cheeks until I began to bleed. My face was red and blistering. I dreamt of beheading it and throwing it out the window. But every morning and every night I’d wet it, lube it with mint toothpaste, and put it back into my mouth.
I tried locking the bathroom door. It seemed unlikely it could finagle itself from that with any finesse/success. I drifted to sleep feeling pleased until I came into consciousness to the sound of frogs belching, cool in the creek nearby. And something else constant and nearer. It was the buzzing. It was coming from under the covers. I lifted my comforter and felt the toothbrush’s control thicken alongside my fear. I leaped from my bed and ran down the two stories of my apartment, out the back door, straight to the dumpster. Slightly wet and resolute, I trashed it.
When the toothbrush painstakingly re-entered my apartment a week later, it smelled god-awful. I’d opened my door to a light knocking and found it at my feet. We both were a sight for sore eyes. In the week it had been gone, I hadn’t replaced it. The fear I had! A toothbrush had always just been a toothbrush until one came along and tried to own me. Now, there was no predicting what a toothbrush was capable of. I spent the week destitute with the breath of a walrus. There was an honest and small relief at the toothbrush’s return.
But it looked disgusting. The dumpster I’d discarded it in must have had someone else’s scrapped dinner. No matter how much I soaked and scrubbed it, the toothbrush’s head was now a washed-out ketchup red. It had banged itself so many times up the two flights of stairs that its battery case had been broken. It no longer took a charge or buzzed against me. There was a small part of me that felt bad for the brush. Initially, I’d wanted us to work as well.
But the brush’s disposition towards me had grown to match its reddened face. It no longer trusted me. It would sooner break off its own head and leave it jammed down my throat than let me go. The toothbrush said I had chosen it, citing its barcode number. ‘And why do you want me?’ I often pleaded. It told me if it was going to own someone, it might as well be me. I supposed that was true. I carried it to its pillow beside my head each night.
The haggard and uncharged brush no longer shined my teeth so I tried not to smile so often. It left markings on my face that my makeup began to infect and I began to get fevers here and there. My coworkers began to comment on my appearance. The sight of my face was upsetting to people. I told them I had a nervous condition that made me do this to myself. I told them I used my toothbrush.
After my long conversation with HR, I decided I’d try to escape its wrath once more. I would create my own fate and then let its beastly nature commit itself to the rest. Old, decrepit, and lacking any battery, I settled on a duel. I armed myself with a new Sonicare toothbrush to protect me. I charged the new brush in the bathroom while my old one sat dead beneath the sink. I cracked the cabinet to ensure the old brush could get out; I was certain it would enact violence against the new threat. I fell asleep to the sound of frogs, sure I’d reset my fate.
I awoke the next morning to find the new Sonicare brush drowned in the toilet. Water covered the floor and spattered against the toilet seat. The old battered brush glistened on the ground, its faded red bristles giving it the look of a soldier after battle. I, the wartime nurse, fetched it and ran some hot water. I massaged my thumb lovingly along its bristles under the warmth as it began to get hotter.
There was a softness in its savagery that suddenly felt familiar. Its ownership felt less like a cage and more like a home. I turned off the running water and smeared mint toothpaste against its face before gently placing it in my mouth.
My mother called on the home phone to tell me my ex-husband had been released from jail. Her voice was quivering and she asked why I was so calm. She scolded me to take myself more seriously. She’d always called me a frog in a pot of boiling water when I was with him.
“You’re making bad choices,” she’d said when we first were married. “He’ll kill you.”
Today on the phone she said, “You’ll probably have to move again. You know if you stay there he’ll find you.” I tried to quell her but she had worked herself up. “You’re a sitting duck! No, no what you are— you know what they say about frogs in boiling water–”
I cut her off but she kept talking over me until I stopped talking.
She continued: “...They let themselves die. They don’t jump out of the water and it gets hotter until it's boiling. They just adjust to the water.” I didn’t say anything in return. “It’s not your fault,” she quickly followed. “You just have to trust yourself."
I wasn’t sure if it was myself, fate, or a certain kind of man, but it felt beside the point. It was exactly what it was, anyway.
“You should get a new phone number. Just in case.” She urged me. “It’s so frustrating that you won’t get a cell phone,” she said. “Anyways, how has your mental health been—”
“Then how did I get that footage?” I interrupted her. She wasn’t making any sense. I had a cellphone. Didn’t I? She seemed confused “Darling, which footage?”
“The footage. Of the toothbrush—,” I heard her begin shuffling and her breath quickened. “Honey, are you alright? Is someone there with you?” I looked at my toothbrush, which sat proudly next to the sink. Glittering. I heard a frog croak nearby and hung up.
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