The Father of Teeth

Text for today: Dentures lxvi-lxxiii

It was nowhere near there, however, that the Father of Teeth came upon a great idol of stone, surrounded by the ruins of an ancient city. There were carvings on the shattered walls, of which the more lewd and libertine had been recently improved with paints and sprays; and there was a handy stall where fees could be paid and small chisels rented, should the discerning tourist wish to acquire a sample of the site's archaeological riches.

The idol had clearly been a worthy object of veneration. Thanks to the assertive vastness of its intellect, its eyes bulged forth like a pair of enraged pumpkins; its various fists were clenched in overwhelming compassion, its majestic brow was carven with mystic runic wrinkles, and the opulent protrusion of its lips framed with gracious modesty a divinely omnivorous grin. Between its carven legs dangled a decorous awning, and before the awning stood a brightly coloured stall with a counter, and behind the counter stood a large man in a wide-brimmed hat and an apron with a patriotic flag.

"Get your smiley sustenance right here," bellowed the man as the Father of Teeth gnashed into view; and the Father of Teeth, who rarely disobeyed a direct order except those personally issued by the Creator of the universe, approached with a molar-flashing moue of malign curiosity.
"What's cooking?" asked the Father of Teeth.
"Only the best," said the man, taking up a skillet and prodding at his cooking-fire, which was belching black clouds of sickly-sweet smoke into the idol's face. Fortunately its nostrils were quite rudimentary, or most of them anyway.
"Only the best what?" asked the Father of Teeth.
"Stir-fried sugar cane, of course," said the man, as he took a pair of tongs and withdrew from a frothy cauldron a sizzling bundle of sticks. These he dipped into a vat, where they gained a white coating; and then he held them over a roaring blue flame until the coating gained a pottery polish. The man dropped the sticks onto a paper platter and sprinkled them with clots of coarse powder in red, white and blue. "There you go," he said. "Authentic stir-fried sugar cane, glazed in sugar and hand-frosted with colour-processed millisaccharines, just the way the natives used to bake it."
"Just before they died out?" asked the Father of Teeth.
"They were a depraved and inefficient race," said the man. "Why, before they were conquered they hardly knew about sugar at all, and afterward they became so excessive in farming it that these days it has to be imported." He gestured at the cooking fire. "Can't even get fuel hereabouts, and the codex market's drying up fast."

Reaching to a high shelf he took down a wooden block, from which hung tattered cotton tassels done up in intricate knots. With a flick of the man's meaty finger the block unfolded into a jointed rectangle of brightly decorated panels, at which the man glanced with casual disdain. "Couldn't even do a proper graphic novel," he grunted as he knelt by the fire. Smoke rose again into the idol's face; black tendrils plucked at its mouth, and as the man prodded the codex into the flames the idol's seventh upper left incisor detached itself from its granite gum with a brief grinding crack and fell, with a brittle sugary crunch, upon the cranium of the stir-fry seller. During its descent the tooth tore away the awning and thereby exposed the idol's momentous genitals.

"Madam," said the Father of Teeth, with the utmost courtesy; and before taking his leave he carefully prepared and set forth the mashed mincemeat of the stir-fry seller. In accordance with the sacred recipe set out in the next codex on the shelf, he left the dish unsweetened.