The Father of Teeth

Text for today: Gingivitis ccxvii-ccxxxiii

It was by no means as a consequence, therefore, that the Father of Teeth was distracted by something shiny in the distance. Making his way towards the glittering gleam, he found himself in the midst of a great crowd surrounding a bonfire. Though as yet unlit, the bonfire was the source of the glittering gleam.

"Welcome, stranger," said a member of the crowd, grinning with cheery hospitality. "Be happy to join us happily in our happiness and contentment, for today we celebrate the Creator's bounty with a happy act of faith."
"Indeed," said the Father of Teeth; "a sacrifice, I suppose."
"Not at all," said another member of the crowd, grinning with cheery helpfulness. "The sacrifice occurred last week, by the Creator's own happy initiative, when with divine accuracy of aim He dropped an immaculately dressed block of best quality building stone onto a valued member of our community, as he was supervising the forty-seventh quadrennial extension of the guardhouse to the priests' larder."
"Quite so," said a third member of the crowd, grinning with helpful cheeriness. "And today we are happy to burn his widow."

Squinting in the direction of the cheerily pointing finger, the Father of Teeth saw an upright stake protruding from the bonfire, to which several cheery men were binding a woman clad in black. Her face was concealed by a golden grin at least twice the dimensions of her skull; it was from this artificial expression that the glittering gleam was emanating.

"His widow?" said the Father of Teeth. "Was it she, then, who caused the death of this builder of yours, through witchcraft perhaps, and thereby deprived the priests' larder's guardhouse of its due and deserved extension?"
"Much worse than that," said a member of the crowd, grinning with cheery informativeness. "Have we not already happily testified that the sacrifice was by the Creator's will alone? But she blasphemed and insulted that will by grieving for her husband, and for this she must be burned, while the priests impound his legacy for safe-keeping against any future blasphemies by those of his heirs who carry her terrible taint."
"You forbid the grieving of families in cases of sacrifice through the self-reliant initiative of the Creator?" asked the Father of Teeth.
"It grieves us that you find our faith so lukewarm," said a member of the crowd, grinning with grievous cheeriness. "We happily punish and expunge the sin of grief in case of any death whatever; for either the deceased is in Paradise, in which case mourning is a self-evident and selfish absurdity, or else the deceased is undergoing the deserved penalty for their sins, in which case grief is a self-centred and condoning perversity. And now, pray observe and rejoice with us."
"Willingly," said the Father of Teeth; and as the bonfire was lit he bared his capacious caries and transcendental tartar and let fly an exhalation so cheerful that half of the crowd was levelled on the spot, their countenances rigidly fixed in grins of immovable optimism. Blue flames belched from the priests' cheery torches and rapidly enveloped the bonfire, the surrounding dignitaries and the priests themselves, who scurried and shrieked with doubtless cheery enthusiasm, spreading the fire deep into town and cooking a good deal of meat that wasn't in the larder. Showing due respect for their sincerely-held beliefs, the Father of Teeth did not grieve.

The widow's golden grin melted down to a glittering gobbet, which the Father of Teeth picked from the ashes and moulded into a monumental molar, which remains rooted to this day amid the town's blackened ruins and may still be rejoiced over if nobody has stolen it.