Despite utmost care for, and good governance of, one's own nails, a single careless action can and will render uniform keratin smoothness a dream, a desire, a mere memory of the perfection that was and the imperfection that is. Due to the irreproducibility of such tragic trysts with destiny, the cure to such life-altering ailment has remained elusive since time immemorial – that is, elusive until now.
Firstly, it is of paramount importance to distinguish wrinkled toenails, that is, those with fine chaffing along vertical lines, from toenails with deep horizontal grooved lines that Joseph Honoré Simon Beau posthumously likes to call “Beau’s lines”. While both stem from damage to the nail fold, fine vertical lines affect luster while horizontal ridges are just plain despicable. This treatise is targeted solely towards homeopathically healing the fine vertical lines and the associated chaffing and not the hideous Beau’s lines. The recently wrinkle-afflicted should not worry if horizontal lines temporarily appear soon after injury. Cosmetic damage will eventually be grown out to clippable area; only damage to the nail fold will produce a constant stream of wrinkles which create vertical lines as the nail is grown.
Now, before delving into the cure, let us first harken back to the shrill cries of my badminton-playing self. I had kept my eye on a lobbed birdie, but in spite of its clear trajectory out of court, I had the urge to smash it powerfully with my racquet. That urge for display of power, that very urge to feel the harmonious 'twing' resonate and reverberate through my forearm was my ultimate downfall. As I ran beneath, squinting against the midday sun to see the faintish outline of an inbound shuttlecock, a sharp, excruciating sting permeated from my afferent nociceptors until the entire path of dendrites and axons from my left toe to the dorsal root ganglion affixing my consciousness transcended into a highway of pure pain. Regrettably, I wore open-toed sandals and stubbed my toe into the raised pavement area around a well. On the positive side, the various assortment of insects were presented a feast of blood-drenched sandy pavement. Reparations, perhaps, for my trespass into their court. By cracking my toenail, I became a silent member of the eschewed millions whose left toenails no longer had the sheen, the luster, the polish that makes us entirely whole. I was only twelve years of age, too young to be afflicted with a wrinkled toenail, a haunting reminder of the mistake once made; but the cruel fates confer no mercy for innocence and youth.
Two days ago, a miracle of circumstances occurred. Wearing improperly velcroed house slippers, I spirited up a staircase when three stairs shy of the top my slippers slipped and while I am uncertain of the exact sequence of events, I was left panting and knelt, with my knees on one of the topmost stairs and my two hands firmly prostrated on the ceramic tiles of the floor I wished to be on. More importantly, my left toe seared with blunt pain, the kind associated with blue bruises and an absence of external hemorrhaging. Resuming my bipedal locomotion, I channeled my dedication toward composure and continued on with my day unfazed. Later that night, shortly before heading to bed, I inspected my left toenail and to my astonishment, the blunt force seemed to have unwrinkled the nail plate, shaping it to the smoothness of the tender skin beneath. I now eagerly await as the entire nail replenishes at 0.1mm/day from the now corrected lunula. Preliminary findings support the case that in a couple months’ time the entire toenail will be correctly regrown, erasing all remnants of a wrinkled past.
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