The crux of “One of These Days” is Aurelio’s revenge against the mayor. The story leads up to Aurelio’s pulling of the mayor’s tooth without anesthesia, beginning with his refusal to see the mayor and ending with his vengeful comment to the mayor while gripping his tooth with dental forceps: “Now you will pay for our twenty dead men.” Still, this revenge seems to have little meaning by the end of the story. First, while the mayor experiences temporary suffering from his tooth being pulled, this tooth pulling is ultimately why he came to the dentist to begin with. In this way, even if unanesthetized, the mayor receives what he came for. Second, it is difficult to imagine that any amount of short-lived pain could make up for the deaths of twenty men. Finally, the mayor has not changed by the end of the story. While it is unclear how the mayor is connected to the deaths of these men, Aurelio sees him as despicable and blames him for these deaths. However, when Aurelio asks him where to send the bill, the mayor responds that the town’s funds are the same as his own. The mayor thus remains a despicable character, using the town’s coffers for his personal funds. Aurelio’s revenge, then, is ultimately insignificant, as it does little to solve any of the larger problems that exist in the region.

Within the story, both primary characters exercise power in different ways. One might expect the mayor to hold the most power in the story, given that he holds political office. He also threatens to shoot the dentist early in the story, yet this ultimately proves an empty threat. Aurelio, as a dentist, is likely the only person in town capable of helping the mayor, and after Aurelio challenges the mayor to come in and shoot him, it is clear that the mayor has little leverage in the situation. Aurelio seems to know that the mayor will not live up to his word, and throughout the entire interaction, he seems dismissive of the mayor. He does not respond, or responds coldly, to the mayor’s politeness, and while the mayor watches Aurelio intently before the tooth pulling, Aurelio does not seem concerned with the mayor. This all stems from the fact that during the entire interaction, Aurelio is in control. He decides how the procedure will be performed, he has the luxury of interacting with the mayor on his own terms, and the mayor is largely at his mercy. In this way, expected power dynamics are effectively flipped, as the governmental agent is powerless in front of the unlicensed dentist.

However, Aurelio only possesses this power within his dental practice. Outside the practice, the mayor is able to issue death threats, and it is only when he enters the office itself that he takes on a more submissive role. Further, once the mayor leaves the office, he is comfortable exhibiting his corrupt nature, telling Aurelio that his money and the town’s are one and the same through the screen door to the office. This suggests that while the mayor is at the mercy of Aurelio in the dentist’s office, the rest of the town is the mayor’s domain. On a broader level, this suggests that power itself is not static, but is instead contextual, as the characters shift between who is in control and who is not.

Throughout the story, it is unclear what precisely Aurelio’s vendetta against the mayor is, but it is clear that the mayor has made choices...