The Father of Teeth

Text for today: Incisors xcii-cxiv

Due to unforeseen circumstances, however, the Father of Teeth was interrupted by the tumultuous arrival of a large and noisy female. Her melodramatic effusions, ballooning figure, grey tangle of hair, large protruding eyes and fluorescent lilac dress all instantly proclaimed her a fortune-teller.

"I am the subject of persecution," she intoned; "an unholy and unbelieving mob has torn down my tent, shattered my crystal ball and taken unpardonable liberties with my blessed receptacles."
"Did the stars not predict this impudence?" asked the Father of Teeth.
"The power to read the stars," said the woman haughtily, "is not given to be used for our own sake, but only for the good of others."
"Precisely," said the Father of Teeth; "and if the stars had shown you the fate of this mob after its defilement of your business address, no doubt you would have found some way to warn each and every participant of their encroaching doom, and recommend some profitable course of action by which the whole unfortunate business might be avoided."
"Does this mean," said the woman, "that you are prepared to set yourself straight with the spirits by undertaking some small but apocalyptic act of justice on my behalf?"
"Perhaps you would oblige me with a cold reading?" asked the Father of Teeth.
The woman gamely took the proffered claw and squinted at the palm, in which the crooked and convoluted lines dodged and intersected with more-than-statistical flexibility. "This is most irregular," she complained, relinquishing the gnarled digits with obvious relief; "I can find no proper life-line, and there appear to be several lines of fortune which all run parallel and cancel each other out. However, I can confidently predict a visit to the dentist in the near future."

The Father of Teeth bestowed upon her a prolonged view of his most authentically ancient commemorative plaque. When the vapours had cleared, the woman gasped: "Had the mob not deprived me of my cards and crystals, no doubt I would have attained a more purely factual insight. Will you not therefore aid the fates in their inscrutable benignity, and inflict upon those vandals the doom they have incurred?"
"Cross my palm," said the Father of Teeth, holding it out again; and with a shudder the woman placed a few coins upon the sordid surface and, when the palm's unpleasant presence persisted, a few more.
"Your wish?" asked the Father of Teeth.
"To see the mob destroyed, and smashed to its constituent atoms, in the interests of just and proportionate karmic balance, and to prevent their unnecessary suffering in future lives."

At this point the mob, having caught up with the woman and observed her handing money to the Father of Teeth, shrewdly added purchase of immoral favours to the multiple counts of fraud with which she was already charged. When she left the Father of Teeth, in sure and certain hope that a thunderbolt would strike down her enemies, she was somewhat astonished to find herself seized, hauled before the judge and sentenced to the pillory, the ducking-stool, a considerable fine and compulsory sartorial training. Having delivered her to the court, the mob immediately broke up into its constituent parts, few of whom had many worries about their debts to her in future lives.

"I predict," said the Father of Teeth, confidently but with due regard for discretion, "a certain dissatisfaction with the working-out of the contract."