The Father of Teeth

Text for today: Gingivitis cxviii-cxxxiv

Eventually, however, the Father of Teeth arrived at a shabby compound surrounded by a snaggle-picket fence. As he drew closer he saw that the stakes in the fence were thigh-bones curiously warped at the top, and bound in place with strings of leathery sinew; and in place of a gate there was an opening where an old man sat on a three-legged stool. He had a book in his hands and a shotgun across his thighs, and his posture was uninviting. As the Father of Teeth approached, the old man closed the book, marking his place carefully with a flat black strip of tanned tongue, and rested his gnarled hands on the weapon.

"What is this place?" asked the Father of Teeth.
"This, O most ignorant stranger," said the old man, "is the last outpost of virtue, the only bastion against sinfulness, the final and ultimate guardhouse of tradition and truth in the entire world."
"Indeed," said the Father of Teeth, who had encountered many such places before and was never surprised at the next one, or even the one after that. "And what particular tradition and truth do you guard?"

The old man proudly raised his head, stretching his dewlap with a horrible creak and exposing his soiled white collar. "This is the Universal Choirboy Emporium," he said. "Yes, yes," he added as the glittering eyeballs of the Father of Teeth surveyed the silent yard; "yes, yes, it's all quiet now because they're chained up; exercise on Sundays would be no more excusable than bowel movements on the second Friday after Michaelmas. Not that they take much interest any more, even when exercise is permissible. Besides all their other derelictions, they are disgracefully overweight. The sins of the world have taken their toll."

Taking up his book, he waved it in tantalising fashion under the nose of the Father of Teeth, snatching it back hurriedly when the pages began curling and blackening in deference to the apocalyptic halitosis. "You see this?" the old man said, concealing the book inadequately among the black rags of his clothing. "This book, O most sinful and disreputable stranger, contains the sole true method for breeding choirboys, as handed down from Heaven in the days of virtue. It contains the ultimate secrets of how best to select for voice quality, ease of castration, and flexibility of sphincter, to say nothing of nurturing the spiritual qualities."
"Indeed," said the Father of Teeth. "But the results have become corrupted, is that not so?"
"The method was handed down from Heaven," snapped the old man; "to call the results corrupt is a logical contradiction. No, no; it was the world that strayed. For two millennia I have read the same words, employed the same laundresses, ploughed the same furrows and sown the same oats; and yet the fields are barren, the rivers are dry, the castrations are messier than ever and the sphincter quality errs with regrettable frequency upon the loose and leathery side. Listen, they awaken." A faint wailing, on a clear treble note, began to echo across the compound, interrupted on occasion by gale-force gusts of flatulence. The old man leaned forward confidentially, so that his thumb brushed casually against the catch of his shotgun. "Perhaps," he enticed, "you yourself might care to partake? The sphincters are loose and leathery, but they are also roomy and resilient, and you appear suitably calloused in all the necessary areas, your thigh-bones are in fair condition, and the infidel tax is reasonable."

But the Father of Teeth shook his head. "You forget that I am an ignorant stranger and a most impious sinner," he said; "I would not profane your merchandise with my uncleanliness, and certainly not on a Sunday."
"Dispensations can always be made," said the old man; "beleve me, I speak from experience."
"No doubt," said the Father of Teeth, "but I have seen enough of the Creator's work to know that very little is to my taste."

WIth a snarl the old man levelled the shotgun and fired straight into the Father of Teeth's third-brownest overbite, so that all the pellets lodged fast in the smaller cavities. The Father of Teeth picked the old man up and tucked him under his arm, and followed the sound of wailing and gnashing of sphincters until he found the breeding pits, where the old man added a new and indignant note to the general harmony after the Father of Teeth did something unspeakable with the shotgun.