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Pulling Teeth - James Brooks |
He was lying in a pool of his own blood. Abeni, the owl, clacked across the floorboards dipping her beak into the pool, lapping it up. Mrs Goldsmith was standing in the kitchen admiring Robert’s incisor. She reached a finger up into her mouth and pulled out a set of dentures, roped with saliva. The teeth were all different shapes and sizes, but in the correct order, and all were pearly white. There were two spaces left in the upper row of the dentures, one in the bottom. She took Robert’s incisor and fixed it into place using tacky white glue. She held the dentures out, admiring them.
“Shaleshmen alwaysh hash shush perfect teesh.” The words came out gummy and slurred. She sucked the set of stolen teeth back into her mouth and hobbled through into the living room. “Ahh… that’s better.” Mrs Goldsmith eyed up the corpse on her floor. “Abeni, you leave that alone! You don’t know where’s it’s been to.” She opened the back door of the house and looked around outside in her hog enclosure. The whole back garden was fenced off and full of farm mud. There was a shadowy lean-to out there, crawling with hairy movement. Tusks flashed in the darkness. Mrs Goldsmith set down the pair of bowls.
“Dinner time boys.” |
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