The Father of Teeth

Text for today: I Caries xxxi-xl

Later, finding himself once more among the dentists, the Father of Teeth was rushed into the sacrificial chair and angled with breakneck zeal towards the hot and holy light. An acolyte in a white coat came forth, holding in his right hand the instruments of purification and in his left a libation of royal purple in a plastic beaker. The maw of the Father of Teeth glittered black and mahogany in the searchlight's sacred beam, while he clawed unerringly for the acolyte's crotch and guided him, very nearly painlessly, to replace the Father of Teeth on the altar of virtue.

"Will it hurt?" the acolyte inquired according to the ritual; but there was awe in his grin as the Father of Teeth loomed over him and bared his luminous magenta gums.
"Don't worry," answered the Father of Teeth, flexing his face towards a hideous approximation of the traditional smile of reassurance; "we're just going to scrape off the plaque."

Expertly he flicked a switch, and penetrating whines of eagerness were heard from the exquisitely sharpened instruments. "Open wide," said the Father of Teeth, and the acolyte complied in a delirium of mystical receptivity.

And when the festival of moral and oral hygiene was ended and the receptionist dared to peep around the surgery door, the light from the acolyte's hovering grin was truly blinding; so much so, indeed, that neither then nor ever afterwards could the dumbstruck receptionist or the screaming police be sure that anything but the grin had remained of him.