The Father of Teeth

Text for today: II Bicuspid cxxvii-clxiii

On a whim, the Father of Teeth nevertheless approached one of the small, dusty boxes and plugged in the antiquated communicator. Reception was bad and the signal crackled and crunched like molars being chewed by other molars, but the Father of Teeth banged with his fist on the box's lid, adding further dents and sending clouds of dust fleeing in search of a cleaner neighbourhood. The interference faded and a sleepy voice said, "Yes?"
"You are, as I understand, the bulbous and blue-rinsed chairbeing of the Campaign Against Virtual Experience," said the Father of Teeth.
"I am," said the voice from the box. "I have been so for twenty years, and shall remain so for as long as body and breath endure."
"And yet here you are," said the Father of Teeth, "holding converse in your sleep - it is night where you are, I believe?"
"Of course it is night," said the voice from the box, with asperity. "Do you imagine I can spare time during the day for this sort of thing?"
"Holding converse in your sleep," continued the Father of Teeth, "with a phantom voice that knows your future and offers you strange bargains. What behaviour is that for a person of your station?"
"The Campaign Against Virtual Environments has never campaigned against dreams," said the voice from the box. "Dreams are a natural phenomenon, and the Campaign is concerned only with abolishing video games, recreational drugs, immoral literature and all other unnatural and artificial methods by which reality is distorted and the nation's vitality sapped."
"You have achieved great things, no doubt," said the Father of Teeth.
"Indeed we have," said the voice from the box. "We have compulsorised censorship in seven counties, we have twice beaten off the masturbation epidemic, and we have put back the development of artificial intelligence by a decade or more. Reality is safe in our hands, and it is only by action in reality that our lives attain meaning."
"And that, of course," said the Father of Teeth, "you would never feel inclined to trade - not even for a better meaning?"
"Give up the meaning of my life?" said the voice from the box. "Betray my principles and abandon the truth? The very question is an insult."
"I spoke of bargains," said the Father of Teeth. "Your reality is about to change considerably: you are scheduled for demotion, public disgrace, a painful and humiliating illness, and the traumatically abrupt discovery that your youngest daughter is a masturbator, a games designer and a writer of questionable literature involving polyamorous transgender orcs. Would you care to reconsider?"
"What do you mean, public disgrace?" demanded the voice from the box. "I haven't done anything wrong."
"Past sins will be edited in," said the Father of Teeth. "But there is no need for you to suffer any of it. Suppose you could enter a different reality, with a happier future - a reality otherwise identical to the one you inhabit now, or better if you like; I'm sure we could see our way to some other small yet meaningful improvements. Clear an artery here, deflate a haemorrhoid there..."
"Absolutely not," said the voice from the box.
"You wouldn't even need to feel guilt about your choice," said the Father of Teeth; "you wouldn't remember this conversation any more than you remember being conceived."
"Leave my family out of this," said the voice from the box. "And regardless of your blandishments and threats, I will never give up the truth, no matter how painful, for a mere pleasant delusion."
"It's your choice, more or less," said the Father of Teeth; and unplugging the communicator he flicked the fate-switches as scheduled and left the bulbous and blue-rinsed chairbeing of the Campaign Against Virtual Environments secure in her virtuous reality and blithely unaware of the twenty-six million, twenty-one thousand nine hundred and sixty-eight preceding occasions on which she had eventually accepted his offer.