One Of These Days

“One Of These Days” is a short story written by Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez, first published in Spanish in 1962 and later in English in 1968. García Márquez garnered international acclaim as a journalist and an author of both novels and short stories. The short story “One Of These Days” takes place in a small town and follows a linear, realistic plot line that explores themes common in the works of García Márquez, such as Power and Vulnerability, Political Corruption, and The Coexistence of Retribution and Compassion. His most celebrated novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982 and displays his use of magical realism as it chronicles the history of the fictional town Macondo. Other works by Márquez include The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor, Chronicle of a Death Foretold, and Love in the Time of Cholera.

This study guide uses the Harper Perennial edition published in 1979 and translated by J. S. Bernstein.

“One Of These Days” employs a third-person limited point of view that describes the setting and characters in the manner of a journalist observing and reporting. The first sentence is short and to the point, establishing the scene: It’s a Monday, warm and rainless. Beginning with the second line, the narrator focuses on the protagonist, Aurelio Escovar, a dentist without any formal degree, who is an early riser and opens his business at six in the morning.

Aurelio is hardworking and detail-oriented. He first busies himself by meticulously arranging his instruments and then spends most of the morning carefully polishing a set of false teeth with only a brief pause in his work to look out the window at two buzzards. His work is interrupted when his 11-year-old son calls to him, informing him that the Mayor wants his tooth pulled. Aurelio, without any hesitation, tells his son to lie to the Mayor, saying that he isn’t there, and then resumes carefully polishing a gold tooth. His son responds that the Mayor is not fooled since he can hear him from the waiting room. Aurelio continues polishing the tooth without giving a further response until he has finished polishing the gold tooth and places it on a table. Only then he responds, “[s]o much the better” (74).

Completely engrossed in his work, he moves to a cardboard box where he keeps dental pieces he has yet to finish, takes out the pieces of a bridge, and begins polishing the gold. His son calls to him again and this time tells him that the Mayor is threatening to shoot him if he doesn’t extract the tooth. Aurelio responds to this news calmly and deliberately. He pulls open a drawer to reveal a revolver and replies to his son, “[t]ell him to come and shoot me” (74). He rolls his chair over to face the door and rests his hand on the drawer. When the Mayor appears in his office, Aurelio sees that he has suffered “many nights of desperation” with the pain of his tooth (74). Only half of the Mayor’s face is shaved and the other half is “swollen and in pain” (74). Aurelio gently closes the drawer containing the revolver and directs the Mayor to sit.

They exchange empty pleasantries—“Good morning” and “Morning” (74)—and then Aurelio inspects the infected tooth. He tells the Mayor it has to be removed without anesthesia. When the Mayor asks why, Aurelio answers that it is because he has an abscess. The Mayor tries to make the best of it and attempts to smile, a smile not reciprocated by the dentist. Aurelio prepares the instruments, slowly and methodically, without looking the Mayor in the eyes. In contrast, the Mayor keeps his eyes glued to Aurelio. When the dentist grasps the infected wisdom tooth with his forceps, the Mayor seizes the arms of the chair he’s sitting in and feels “an icy void in his kidneys” but makes no sound in response to the pain (75). As Aurelio has the tooth clenched in his forceps, and the Mayor is in silent agony, Aurelio says “with a bitter tenderness, […] [n]ow you’ll pay for our twenty dead men” (75). Aurelio severs the tooth from the jawbone, causing the Mayor’s eyes to fill with tears because of the immense pain, but still he doesn’t cry out. Once the tooth is out, the Mayor tries to recover himself but is visibly shaken by the experience. He bends over the spittoon, panting and shaking, and unbuttons his tunic. He reaches for a handkerchief from his pants pocket to dry his eyes. Aurelio hands him a clean cloth and says, “[d]ry your tears” (75).

The Mayor, who is still trembling from the ordeal, looks around, noting the disrepair of the office. The dentist tells his patient to go to bed and gargle with salt water. The Mayor stands up and says goodbye, giving a casual military salute. As the Mayor walks toward the door, he tells Aurelio to “[s]end the bill” and Aurelio asks, “To you or to the town?” The Mayor doesn’t stop to look at the dentist. He closes the door to the office and then says through the screen, “[i]t’s the same damn thing” (76).