Loose.

They’re not supposed to be loose. Not after the first set is gone. They’re supposed to be fixed. A permanent feature of the mouth until the day of death. Long after, even. Decades, centuries, after. They’re supposed to be an identifying marker. A thing that can be used to solve mysteries and murders. A way to tell who it was long after all other signs of identity are taken by time and the elements.

if they’re taken care of, they’re supposed to be the only set ever needed. False ones are made, of course. People lose them. Things happen. Accidents happen. Fate happens. Age happens, sometimes. Not everything can be predicted. But that’s the extreme. That’s decay and rot, that’s not taking care of what you have or having bad genetics. That’s the older years when everything goes. That’s the future that might not be avoidable.

But any way it’s looked at, it’s not supposed to be like this. With no reasoning. No cause. No hint. No warning? It just happens? It’s not supposed to be so sudden, the onset and progression occurring within minutes. Not even hours. Minutes. Not even moments. Minutes. Just minutes. Quick ones. A clock would look comically sped up with these minutes moving on it’s face.

Nothing to stop it. There’s a fear of touching. What if touching makes it worse? What if even the most gentle of nudges causes a cascade? A mass release that avalanches outward?

Hands poised below already scramble to catch the falling. There is no regularity to it. No way to predict. They fall out as if they were never anchored to begin with. They spill forth like ivory tears. Dropping into the palm with only slightly more substance to them than air. Only a little bit more weight. A slow cry from the wrong expressive feature.

They make a noise when they tumble together. Something like dice knocking against one another when shaken in the hands. Only less insistent. The sound is more hollow, emptier. The audio of it only makes it worse. Takes away the last vestige of sanity. The one sense that should be free from the moment is kidnapped and brought into it.

There is no blood. At least not the sort that should accompany such a loss. There is enough to flavor the tongue, but not enough to drip out and puddle with the growing mound being created. But there’s sensation. Not just of the looseness. That is only a small part. There is more feeling. The slipping of solid matter through it’s fleshy cousin. The release from the socket as they plunge through the air. Then the emptiness of that socket. The hole that was only seconds ago home to the very thing it was made for. A thing that can be felt through absence and the tongue. A dual overload of information. The sockets are raw and lonely. The tongue glides over them and feels only slick wet voids. Each it’s own gulf of nothing.

Despite the occurrences, there is no answer. No way or time to even pose the question why. It gives no opportunity. Only fear. Only a little realization that reality is gone. Rationality is gone.

What should not be happening, is.