The Green Line

The shift at the Klinik was over, and I was in the common room, still in my civilian clothes, trying to unwind. It was a converted ward on the third floor of a converted hospital in the middle of nowhere, near the old border. I sat across from a nurse named Anke, a local woman with sharp eyes and a dry humor. We were playing a half-hearted game of chess, the pieces worn smooth from years of use.

Earlier that day, I had been to the base dentist, a Lieutenant Colonel with a bedside manner that could curdle milk. I had a molar that had been throbbing for weeks, and I finally caved. He poked around, then leaned back, a grim smile on his face. ‘You know, your gums are receding badly behind your lower front teeth. There’s no reversing that, not at this stage. I’m giving them Last Rites.’ He gestured with his forceps. ‘I could pull them all right now if you want.’ I declined, politely, and told him I’d stick to brushing.

Anke moved her rook and said, ‘You should have let him. Those teeth will bring you nothing but trouble.’ I laughed, but something in her tone made me look up. She was staring at my mouth, her eyes fixed on my lower jaw.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. The base was quiet, but the wind outside howled through the pine trees that bordered the perimeter. I lay in my bunk, running my tongue over the tender spot where the dentist had poked. The back of my lower front teeth felt strange, as if there was something wedged between them and the gum line. I sat up, went to the small mirror above the sink, and pulled my lip down.

There it was: a thin, green line running across the gum, just behind the teeth. It looked like a tattoo, or a streak of mold, but it was perfectly straight, as if drawn with a ruler. I touched it with my finger. It didn’t hurt, but it was slightly raised, like scar tissue. I must have cut myself on something, I thought. I shrugged and went back to bed.

But in the morning, the line was thicker, and it had spread to my upper gum, just behind the front teeth, forming a soft, pulsing green band. It was as if the gum tissue was being slowly replaced by something else. My mouth tasted of rust and old copper. I went to the medic, but he couldn’t see anything wrong. He gave me mouthwash and sent me away.

Over the next few days, the green spread to my other teeth. It didn’t stop at the gum line. It crept up the enamel, staining my teeth with a permanent, mossy tint. And I began to feel a pressure behind my eyes, a constant low hum that vibrated in my skull. My dreams were filled with images of roots growing, twisting, reaching down into dark, wet earth.

Anke noticed. She’d been watching me across the ward. ‘It’s spreading,’ she said quietly, as we passed in the hallway. I nodded, not knowing what else to say. She looked around, then pulled me aside. ‘You need to see Frau Heller. She lives in the village, past the train station. She knows about these things.’

I went to Frau Heller’s house after duty. It was a small, timber-framed house, half-sunken into the hillside. The air inside was thick with the smell of herbs and damp stone. She was an old woman with a lined face and eyes the color of dusty slate. She didn’t ask me to sit, just gestured to the chair by the stove.

‘Show me,’ she said. I pulled down my lip. The green line had now covered my entire lower gum, and the teeth themselves were becoming translucent, like old glass. She leaned in, squinting. Then she stepped back, her face grim. ‘It’s the Green Line,’ she said. ‘You passed through the old mine territory, didn’t you?’ I thought back. I had taken a shortcut through the woods near the border, past a collapsed entrance to an abandoned cobalt mine. I had brushed the earth aside to crawl under a fence, and a bit of soil had gotten into my mouth.

‘It’s a seed,’ she said. ‘It’s growing roots. It will take your teeth, your gums, your jaw. Then it will reach your brain. And when it does, you will become like the others.’ I asked her what the others were. She pointed to a photograph on the wall, a faded picture of a man in an old uniform, standing by a mine cart. ‘My husband,’ she said. ‘He brought it back from the war. He didn’t listen. He let it grow. In the end, he became a plant. He just watched the wall and grew leaves from his ears. They took him away.’

I didn’t want to believe her, but the pain had begun. It wasn’t a toothache. It was a deep, rooting ache, as if something was pushing my teeth out of their sockets from below. I could feel my jaw creak, the bone softening. And in my mouth, I could taste the earth, rich and loamy.

I went back to the dentist, the captain. He was surprised to see me. I opened my mouth, and he recoiled. ‘Good God,’ he said. ‘What is that?’ He tried to scrape it off, but it was firm. He took an X-ray. When he looked at it, he turned pale. ‘Your jaw… the bone is being replaced. It’s like roots. I’ve never seen anything like it.’ He said he could do nothing, that it was too advanced.

That night, I looked in the mirror. My teeth were now a solid, sickly green. And embedded in the gum, tiny filaments were visible, like the roots of a plant, crawling up toward the roof of my mouth. I could feel them moving, a slow, unstoppable growth. I knew that soon, they would reach my tongue, my palate, and then further.

I made a decision. I borrowed a pair of pliers from the maintenance shed. I went back to the mirror, and I started to pull. I pulled and I pulled, each tooth coming out with a wet, sucking sound, bringing with it a mass of green threads that writhed in the dim light. The pain was excruciating, but I gritted my teeth (the ones that were left) and continued. When I was done, my gums were raw and bloody, but the green was gone.

I ran out of the base, into the woods, and I dug a deep hole. I threw the teeth and the pliers in, then I filled it back with earth. I sat there, panting, my mouth full of blood and the metallic taste of copper. The hum behind my eyes had faded.

I went back to my bunk, and I slept for sixteen hours. When I woke, my mouth was clean, scarred but clean. I checked the mirror. No green. I smiled, a painful, toothless smile. I would live.

But as I walked back into the common room, Anke looked at me, and her face went ashen. ‘What did you do?’ she asked, her voice barely a whisper. ‘I removed the infection,’ I said. She shook her head, slowly, and pointed to my reflection in the window. I looked. My gums were clean, my mouth empty. But behind my ears, small green shoots were emerging, tender and beadlike. And in the reflection, I saw that my eyes were no longer my own. They were the color of damp, green earth, and they were beginning to sprout.