The Father of Teeth
Text for today: II Caries xxvii-xliii
Later, as the Father of Teeth was strolling in the seventeenth level, which is among the darkest and mustiest of all the seventeen levels of the seventeenth hell among all the forty-nine true hells, he came upon a soul which mourned and cried: "Alas!"
"Why do you mourn?" asked the Father of Teeth, who found most of the forty-nine hells quite congenial because very few of the denizens ever tried to cheer him up.
"Alas," said the oppressed spirit, "what greater Hell than this, to discover that even Hell isn't all it's cracked up to be?" And the soul rent its shroud, which promptly healed up again.
"Not all of the brochures are accurate, that's a fact," said the Father of Teeth. "Is there any aspect in particular that disappoints you?"
"Alas," lamented the soul, "when I arrived in this place, in accordance with my just and awful sentence for spiritual blindness during my days of meat, I found everything dark as pitch, so that I could not see my hand in front of my face, nor gauge the direction of my endless wanderings; and I expected that matters would remain so for all eternity. But lately," and it held up its pallid hand within an inch of its pallid nose, and slowly rotated its wrist, "lately I find that I can see again. Is this a blob I see before me? My eyes are getting used to the dark, and I am adapting to my eternal punishment!"
So the Father of Teeth put in his most incandescent dentures and let fly a grin which lit up the seventeenth level of the seventeenth true hell of all the forty-nine like a lightning-strike inside a broom cupboard, and the musty air of the seventeenth level was aflash with shrieking dust, and the landscape stood forth in dazzling, leprous yellow. The soul's eyes brought forth tears, which came immediately to boiling-point, the ectoplasmic eyeballs were poached in their spiritual sockets, and the humours turned to steam that burst from the pupils in a hissing spray and scalded the spirit's fingers.
Later, as the Father of Teeth was strolling in the seventeenth level, which is among the darkest and mustiest of all the seventeen levels of the seventeenth hell among all the forty-nine true hells, he came upon a soul which mourned and cried: "Alas!"
"Why do you mourn?" asked the Father of Teeth, who found most of the forty-nine hells quite congenial because very few of the denizens ever tried to cheer him up.
"Alas," said the oppressed spirit, "what greater Hell than this, to discover that even Hell isn't all it's cracked up to be?" And the soul rent its shroud, which promptly healed up again.
"Not all of the brochures are accurate, that's a fact," said the Father of Teeth. "Is there any aspect in particular that disappoints you?"
"Alas," lamented the soul, "when I arrived in this place, in accordance with my just and awful sentence for spiritual blindness during my days of meat, I found everything dark as pitch, so that I could not see my hand in front of my face, nor gauge the direction of my endless wanderings; and I expected that matters would remain so for all eternity. But lately," and it held up its pallid hand within an inch of its pallid nose, and slowly rotated its wrist, "lately I find that I can see again. Is this a blob I see before me? My eyes are getting used to the dark, and I am adapting to my eternal punishment!"
So the Father of Teeth put in his most incandescent dentures and let fly a grin which lit up the seventeenth level of the seventeenth true hell of all the forty-nine like a lightning-strike inside a broom cupboard, and the musty air of the seventeenth level was aflash with shrieking dust, and the landscape stood forth in dazzling, leprous yellow. The soul's eyes brought forth tears, which came immediately to boiling-point, the ectoplasmic eyeballs were poached in their spiritual sockets, and the humours turned to steam that burst from the pupils in a hissing spray and scalded the spirit's fingers.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home