The Father of Teeth

Text for today: II Caries xciv-cxviii

Every so often, temporally speaking, said the Father of Teeth unreliably, the Creator of the universe will try to make an honest whatever of me by forcing me into employment. At one time or another I was janitor on the seventeenth level of unreality, which is the oldest and dustiest and least regarded of His cellars, the one where He puts all the bits and pieces which He called imperiously into being at one time or another but of whose existence He no longer wishes to be reminded. They pray to Him after the usual fashion, offering propitiation and begging to be forgiven, but the dust and the intervening sixteen levels serve to muffle the noise, so He isn't too much inconvenienced. There are several hundred and fourteen thousand two hundred and eighty-nine boxes down there, said the Father of Teeth, all full to the brim with the failed and freakish, and I'm accountable to the Creator of the universe for all the losses and breakages and for wear and tear and despair, and for every sign of moult and mange on every feather duster. It's no holiday, said the Father of Teeth, especially when a box falls finally silent and has to be cleaned out ready for the next lucky tenants. You'll probably have noticed that the Creator's mind has been failing for a while, arguably since time began or even before, and every so often He will not only forget about one of His creations but will actually lose all ability to remember it again. Possibly some of those who pray do so in the hope that their yells and mumbles will jog His memory and thereby postpone their inevitable annihilation, or at least confine whatever annihilation is coming to their enemies. For those who have never had to scrub one out, said the Father of Teeth, the state of a box after kalpas of occupation by a slowly decaying dimension or crumbling metaphysical firmament can only be imagined. And yes, said the Father of Teeth, I do know the intimate particulars of every sentient creation trapped in every single one of those several hundred and fourteen thousand two hundred and eighty-nine boxes gathering dust on the seventeenth level of unreality; and no, said the Father of Teeth, I'm not going to tell you if you're one of them. If you don't know by now, temporally speaking, you'll find out soon enough.