The Father of Teeth

Text for today: I Bicuspid cxxxiii-cxlvii

The Father of Teeth had not stayed there very long, however, before rumours began to circulate about his private life, his diet and especially his civilities. Although he harmed no-one physically, his reassuring grins caused panic among the emotionally vulnerable; and even when he inserted his whitest and sharpest, and walked up and down the high street without severing a single jugular, the mood of the community was not significantly improved.

The children of the town heard the rumours and started waking up screaming at night, so their parents tried to cure them with tales that the Father of Teeth was supervising their behaviour from under the bed and would get them if they didn't settle down. This lullaby proved so effective that the children began having nightmares, which were so accurate and rich in detail that they finally burst from the children's heads and went about the town causing property damage and harming local business interests.

Nothing like this had ever happened before the Father of Teeth arrived, so one morning the parents formed a lynch mob and marched to the small yet sinister hovel in which the Father of Teeth had made his home because of its peaceable location and extensive subterranean amenities. Since their children's welfare was at stake, the parents carried flaming torches and placards with unflattering slogans, and the nightmares which had plagued the town during the hours of darkness were happy to mingle with the throng. Since most of them bore a passing resemblance to one or another of the parents, give or take a tentacle or two, they managed this quite easily.

When the throng reached the residence occupied by the Father of Teeth, and once a few preliminary stones had been hurled at the windowless walls, a delegation of the most righteous parents stepped up to the door. The biggest of them pounded the door with a fist, calling upon the Father of Teeth to come out and face the summary justice of the progenitorially offended.

Without protest the door swung open. The Father of Teeth stood before them; and when the anticipatory yells of the mob had been sufficiently diluted in uncertain silence, he said: "Some of you have progeny, and some of you are the progeny of that progeny, albeit not by the usual channels. I would advise the dreamy grandchildren to leave." And he gave his most pacifying grin.

At this all the nightmares, knowing what was good for them, dissolved into thin air; which left the mob rather smaller than before, and considerably more suspicious. Respectable citizens eyed each other, each wondering whether their neighbour was truly a fellow placard-wielder and practitioner of family values, or something more ethereal and sinister - something conjured up by their own dear offspring.

Later, of course, the town was entered by specialists in protective suits, and there began the protracted and hideous process of cleaning up the mess; but by then the Father of Teeth was long gone.