In this story by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, a corrupt Mayor approaches a dentist to treat an abscessed tooth. The dentist does not want to help, but knows he will be killed if he refuses. The dentist has a revolver in a drawer next to his chair. Once the Mayor is in the chair, the dentist has him at his mercy. In a quiet but serious voice, he says to the Mayor: “Now you’ll pay for our twenty dead men.” The dentist has decided what has to be done… does he pull the trigger, or pull the tooth?
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