The Father of Teeth

Text for today: II Pulp clxxxvii-ccxiii

It was nowhere near there, however, that the Father of Teeth encountered a boxlike establishment, tastefully painted and unobtrusively secured, in which the superannuated were stored. Wrinkled and doddering persons were dispatched there by loving relatives, as the place made an economically handy half-way house where they could pass the tedious interval between retirement and the reading of the will.

Upon manifesting his presence, the Father of Teeth was instantly waylaid by a pair of powerful custodians and conducted, amid much good-natured scolding at quite unnecessary volume, to the office of the director.

The director was neatly packaged and padded in the corporate combination of gold and puce. On her desk reposed a large basket full of dentures, all thoroughly used, and at the sight of the Father of Teeth her lipstick went two shades paler than the requisite corporate hue.

"Is this a new arrival," she asked the custodians when her respiration started up again, "or has there been another disciplinary overreach incident?"
"The two are not necessarily mutually exclusive," said the Father of Teeth, as the dentures in the basket began to chatter quietly among themselves.

The director glared at them. "These appliances have been confiscated from violators, in accordance with the rules," she informed the Father of Teeth, in a voice like a frosted cattle prod. "You have no business coming in here and inducing them to indulge in this disorderly behaviour."
"I have no business anywhere in the known universe," said the Father of Teeth, as the dentures in the basket ceased their disorganised chatter and began to champ steadily in unison. Despite this sudden access of order and discipline, the director did not seem appeased. With a snap of her puce-nailed fingers she signalled the custodians to restrain the Father of Teeth.

"We are quite used to dealing with witches and warlocks here, you know," she said, shaking off the impudent dentures which were nibbling at her nails. "They turn up on a regular basis."
"Indeed," said the Father of Teeth, while the custodians bounced off his halitosis and lay groaning and gagging and clawing at the carpet. "I trust they give no excess trouble?"
"The warts can be difficult sometimes," said the director distractedly, brushing dentures from her shoulder-pads like lumps of carnivorous dandruff. "They clog the incinerator. We should really have a new one put in, but the budget permits only limited refurbishment."
"Regrettable," said the Father of Teeth, whereupon the basket erupted in all directions amid shrieks of tortured wicker. Puce and gold were swamped and drowned as dentures covered the director in a clattering cloak of grins; and since the dentures could not swallow what they chewed, a substantially altered colour scheme soon began to spread. Spatter by spatter and gobbet by gobbet, it advanced across the desk, the carpet, the walls and ceiling, and the two still twitching but mercifully unconscious custodians.

Just as some of the smaller dentures were beginning to improve the ventilation system, the Father of Teeth found his own way out. Given the likely extent of the coming renovations, it seemed the tasteful thing to do.