The Father of Teeth

Text for today: I Bicuspid xxxvii-lxiii

On the contrary, when the Father of Teeth departed that district he left a memento behind, in the form of a seventeen-storey molar which erupted from the city's central square, upsetting three war memorials and discombobulating sundry traffic. It was varnished and glazed to a rich locust-carapace brown, and in the hollow of its crown were enough nutritious scrapings to stave off the famine for a month.

By means of hooks and grapples, and with the aid of numerous convenient cavities in the enamel of the miraculous molar, the boldest among the citizenry ascended to the heights and harvested the bounty for distribution. In payment for this entrepreneurial compassion, the climbers were granted the additional privilege of scraping at the varnish and glaze, and from these brown and brittle pickings they fashioned the brittle bracelets of their office, and also the brown blades with which they improved the genitals of their initiates. With the aid of the miraculous molar the city withstood the famine; the grateful citizens offered thanks to the Father of Teeth, and the climbers undertook to convey their gratitude when the time was right, in return for whatever humble considerations might be deemed appropriate to tide over the messengers in the meantime.

The seasons proceeded according to the Creator's implacable plan; the city was scalded by the sun, battered by the wind and spattered by the rain, and one day the crown of the miraculous molar was discovered to be barren of nutritious material, and in places even scraped down to an unhealthy calcium white. Anxious for their fragile blades and bracelets, which required frequent replacement, the climbers built a shelter around the miraculous molar, and a temple around the shelter, and a courtyard around the temple, and a wall around the courtyard, and a legend around the wall, which stipulated that the Father of Teeth himself had put all these amenities in place, and would himself chew out, most mercilessly and unhygienically, anyone who dared disturb so much as the dust on a single sacred stone. And so the miraculous molar remained unseen and untouched by any but the most privileged among the climbers, while the bulk of the citizenry grovelled from afar.

Again the seasons proceeded according to the Creator's implacable plan; the city was battered by the wind, spattered by the rain, and scalded by the sun. Famine came again, and people died off in a most unspiritual manner, despite the efforts of the climbers, who fashioned new blades and refashioned the genitals of the elect with more-than-carnivorous piety. Many of those who survived made preparations to depart the city, disrespectfully flicking dust from the courtyard wall as they passed by. The climbers denounced them fiercely for these perverse and wilful actions, which could have no other result than to perpetuate the famine unnecessarily; they called down the vengeance of the Father of Teeth, which miraculously materialised in the shape of some heavily-armed and prudently well-fed keepers of law and order. Though their admonishments were salutary in their sacrificial sharpness, the dust had been flicked from the wall and the famine went on much as before.

Once more the seasons proceeded according to the Creator's implacable plan; the city was spattered by the rain, scalded by the sun and battered by the wind, and soon very little remained except for a worn white stump, which throbbed and nagged dully until the Father of Teeth returned to that region, uprooted it with some pliers and a grunt, and hid it about his person and went muttering on his way.