The Father of Teeth
Text for today: I Bicuspid lxiv-lxxvii
But when asked for a parable, the Father of Teeth said: "Did I ever tell you how I once slew a dragon? It was a most voracious and destructive creature, eating virgins by the score and hoarding enough treasure to ensure that the various banking firms with which it did business were too big to fail. Many brave warriors went up against it, but spears and arrows could not penetrate its scaly hide, and the one knight who thought to bring a howitzer was defeated when the dragon breathed fire which set off the ammunition prematurely and blew him to smithereens. I myself succeeded in slaying the dragon only by clinging to its ghastly neck, from which the loose skin dangled in wattles as loose and flabby as the reasoning of priests, and chewing off its scales one by one. The dragon was in flight at the time, and the masticated scales fell down through the atmosphere, shrieking like bombs, and wherever one of them landed a new dragon was born. I understand the banks are still arguing over how to the estate might most profitably be distributed among so many immature and inarticulate heirs. Whoever has teeth to chew, let them chew it over."
But those who had asked for the parable were discontented, and muttered among themselves that the Father of Teeth had failed to explain how he gained access to the dragon's ghastly neck, or who had commissioned him to slay the dreadful creature in the first place, or where the dragon could have been flying on business so urgent that it had failed to notice the scrawny old man digging his vicious gums into its hide. There were even a few who whispered that the Father of Teeth might have been less than scrupulously literal in relating his adventure; but these were hastily trampled flat by the multitude and their pulped remains stamped into the earth where, as a warning to the sceptical, the clay continues red to this day.
"Fools!" the Father of Teeth upbraided the survivors. "You are like readers who ignore the words and see only the spaces between. Your unrelenting attention to what is not in the story distracts you from what is there. The chosen few, however, will observe that one must beware of parables, for each one may spawn further and yet further parables of a far less interpretable nature."
But when asked for a parable, the Father of Teeth said: "Did I ever tell you how I once slew a dragon? It was a most voracious and destructive creature, eating virgins by the score and hoarding enough treasure to ensure that the various banking firms with which it did business were too big to fail. Many brave warriors went up against it, but spears and arrows could not penetrate its scaly hide, and the one knight who thought to bring a howitzer was defeated when the dragon breathed fire which set off the ammunition prematurely and blew him to smithereens. I myself succeeded in slaying the dragon only by clinging to its ghastly neck, from which the loose skin dangled in wattles as loose and flabby as the reasoning of priests, and chewing off its scales one by one. The dragon was in flight at the time, and the masticated scales fell down through the atmosphere, shrieking like bombs, and wherever one of them landed a new dragon was born. I understand the banks are still arguing over how to the estate might most profitably be distributed among so many immature and inarticulate heirs. Whoever has teeth to chew, let them chew it over."
But those who had asked for the parable were discontented, and muttered among themselves that the Father of Teeth had failed to explain how he gained access to the dragon's ghastly neck, or who had commissioned him to slay the dreadful creature in the first place, or where the dragon could have been flying on business so urgent that it had failed to notice the scrawny old man digging his vicious gums into its hide. There were even a few who whispered that the Father of Teeth might have been less than scrupulously literal in relating his adventure; but these were hastily trampled flat by the multitude and their pulped remains stamped into the earth where, as a warning to the sceptical, the clay continues red to this day.
"Fools!" the Father of Teeth upbraided the survivors. "You are like readers who ignore the words and see only the spaces between. Your unrelenting attention to what is not in the story distracts you from what is there. The chosen few, however, will observe that one must beware of parables, for each one may spawn further and yet further parables of a far less interpretable nature."
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