Teeth Eater

Psychiatric Notes on Tristan "Oleander" Elodie

Something heavier between adventure stories.

Content Warning: Graphic Injury, Exploitation

“I hate the color red,” Oleander said. I was struck by how much conviction was in his tone. I had been prescribing him medication for months now, listening to his mask talk about the weather or how the fishing had been recently. He would never tell me how he felt about anything.

I had assumed our arrangement would be forever pragmatic and businesslike. That I would check the box saying he needed Sunsalk’s finest mind-altering substances and that he would continue walking the minefield of avoided vulnerability. But now, sitting in my parlor, the hum of a fan drowning out the passing carriages so that I could hear him quite plainly and distinctly, he told me he loathed the color red.

I adjusted my bifocals and resisted the urge to perk up like a baby bird, starved of any morsel. Patronizing him wouldn’t do.

“Does it remind you of blood?” I asked.

“Cinnabar, actually.” He rose and reached for the hat rack.

I feared my curiosity had overtaken my sense of caution. I rose with him and waved his paperwork in my hand. I ripped up the page my signature was on.

He froze, and his skin turned pale. “Please— if I go without— One morning I forgot to take it and— all the worry came back. To slip back into that— it scared me.”

They’re all like this when I need a favor from a patient, when I spring my trap.

We were getting somewhere, we two addicts, closer to the truths of our natures. He to his pills, and I -

There is no substance known which can rival the high one feels from exerting power over someone who fights back. Seeing the walls crumble when they realize how powerless they are - it’s euphoric.

I had naturally included two fewer pills in his last prescription. Few enough that he would blame it on his own clumsiness. Enough for him to learn what it was like to go without. To open up.

“Sit down,” I commanded. He obliged. Guilt was in his eyes. Oleander thought he’d done something wrong. I couldn’t help but use this. “I don’t know if you’re aware, but it’s against our policy to encourage loose ends. It’s immature of you to start a topic and not finish it.”

“Sorry, sir,” he said in that foolish, remorseful tone.

“So what’s this about Cinnabar?”

“It’s just a memory of before I ran away. Before I became my own person.”

“Was this in your village, the one you were raised in?”

Sweat appeared on Oleander’s neatly shaved head, like morning dew on waxy leaves. His sunken eyes looked at nothing, remembering memories or preparing lies. He sucked on his lip, half biting it. In this brief silence, it was as if Oleander’s reluctance would overcome his chemical dependency, but the moment passed, and he began speaking.

“Yes— like I’ve said previously, our village earned a living giving labor to Clear Water’s mining operations. We’d get a cut of the ore for the local blacksmith, but Clear Water had no use for all the Cinnabar they unearthed. They’d keep it in piles outside the mines.”

“But you didn’t mine; you were a kid, Ole. If you lie to me, I’m afraid I can’t help you anymore.”

He dragged the chair forward and pleaded: “No, please, no, you misunderstand. I never went to the mines. Even then I wanted to end up here in Clear Water. If I went to the mines, it would feel like I’d be-” he hesitated.

“Trapped?”

Olender closed his eyes tight and gave a sycophantic nod.

“Yes, trapped. Thank you. Anyways, one day Anders brought home some of it. The rest of the village mocked him for it. I did too, hauling a pack full of red powder home.”

“And why did you hate Anders? And thus, the red?”

“No, it’s not that straightforward. He burned some of it in the community fire that night. It gave off this awful smell, but what remained was quicksilver.”

“Quicksilver vapor is horribly poisonous— this must be why you-“

Like a child, he interrupted, “We didn’t know what it would do— to us it became a party trick. Others brought some to the next month’s fire. And by the time the next fire had come, even my parents brought some.” He looked at me pleading, like he expected me to congratulate him for being so vulnerable.

“Go on,” I commanded.

“That third fire— I didn’t attend. Against my parents’ wishes, I ran into the forest nearby. The vapors at the previous fire had given me headaches, so I chose to be alone.”

“Do you consider yourself generally antisocial?” I queried, trying to remember the diagnostic criteria for soulless syndrome.

“Well- I liked playing on my own. I would pretend to be a mighty warrior, fighting the elves. But that night I got interrupted.”

“Just a moment, please.” I opened my diagnostic and found the right page, mentally checking off antisocial tendencies. I smiled. “Please continue, Oleander.”

“There was a tall figure, hunched in a dappled robe. I couldn’t make out much about them. Their face was covered by this strange bronze mask.”

“Were you frightened?”

“Looking back, I mean, I should have been, yeah. I don’t know if it was some spell the creature enchanted me with, or just childhood innocence, but I felt no fear. I just asked for its name, and it called itself the Teeth Eater.”

“The Teeth Eater?” I had an inkling of suspicion that the patient was playing a game with me, manipulating me. I mentally checked off “grandiose lies” from the diagnostic.

“Yes. It told me that my town had done something bad, but I could survive it- I just needed to give it something. I agreed. I don’t remember anything else from that night. In the morning I woke up in the grass outside my hut. My parents scolded me, but they seemed sluggish and absent-minded, so I got off easy.”

“Did your parents often neglect to punish you properly? For, say, telling a lie?”

Oleander looked petulant for a moment, but he did eventually produce an answer. “They had been strict up to that point.’

‘I felt a sharp pang in my gums while I was talking with my parents. Afterwards, I was surprised to realize one of my molars had been torn out. There had been no pain until then.’

‘Another strange thing I noticed was that Anders was speaking with the village elders. This surprised me, since he had always been disrespectful. He would continue to surprise me.”

Deceptions or delusions may embody some latent envy of the human soul. To take a part of a body, in this case a tooth, and become whole.

“And how did you react to this missing tooth?”

“I wasn’t as horrified as I am now. Honestly, I forgot about the Teeth Eater until very recently. The fear only set in now, years later. At the time I didn’t like the pain, so I decided to obey mom and dad and attend the fires.”

I checked off “erratic emotions,” and sighed. Continue.”

“At the next fire, Anders addressed everyone. He asked everyone to meet him at the fire every other night. Folks saw no malice, so they agreed.”

“And did you?”

“I did not. I suppose the Teeth Eater held its bargain.”

My parents had the headaches now too, but they seemed just as enthralled as the rest of the village folk. It was all wrong; I knew Anders wasn’t to be trusted.”

“Tell me more about this Anders— is he perhaps like you in any way?” I felt as though my query was a harmless invitation for him to be honest about his tendencies.

“Before this, he was a slob. Never cleaned. Barely talked to anyone, even at work. Before this, everyone called him selfish.’

‘And that’s why it was so strange— people started to adore him. They’d listen to him ramble for hours about nothing. And I didn’t understand until many weeks later, when the fumes of the fires began to fog my head; it all felt like a dream.”

I was growing tired of his fable at this point. “Ole- quicksilver has no hypnotic capabilities- please speak plainly.”

“I hate the color red- cinnabar red.” Oleander raised his voice; sparks of defiance lit in his eyes. “I saw some in the market the other day.” He smothered the wild look in his eyes; his voice softened.” It made me remember the next and final time I saw the Teeth Eater.’

‘Anders had become somewhat of a patriarch at this point. He didn’t work; they all paid him; he even arranged the marriage of a few couples. And I could feel myself slipping; even I felt a twinge of respect for him.’

‘And so that night I ran into the thicket. Even that was like a dream. It had gotten so far that I couldn’t tell waking life from sleep. I was confused, and desperate.’

‘And so the teeth eater found me. And I accepted once again. I did not recall the memory until the market a few days back, and this time, it took four.’

‘I remember it all in vivid detail now. Its withered hand wrenched my jaw open and clutched at the teeth; sharp nails scraped into the enamel like fine utensils on porcelain. I didn’t move. I don’t know why I didn’t move. Now it feels like I chose to let it happen, but I don’t understand how I could have. It felt like my jaw would snap as it yanked out the first tooth and put it through the hole leading to its mouth on its vacant-eyed mask. After a moment, blood gushed into my mouth. It wrenched out another as I gurgled in my own blood, the wound numbed by the creature’s enchantment. As it ate the third, I could hear it crunch. It sounded like it was chewing gravel. The fourth wiggled out easily as if the flesh had melted around it. A mixture of blood and saliva had trickled down my chin. My chest was wet.”

I made my disgust clear to the patient. This vivid detail was inappropriate for such a therapeutic setting. I rose to tell him to see me again in a week; I would consider refilling his prescription then.

Oleander grabbed me by the shoulders. “Why is it that the thing that saved me has to be so awful? It was wrong. That thing was wrong. I wouldn’t have escaped the village if I didn’t meet it. I would be some zombie-thing for Anders. Why did I depend on a monster? How can I hate it? How can I not?” A bestial desperation was in his eyes as tears welled up and slid down his face.

His final question, though derived from psychosis, has a simple answer. In his mind, he needed to leave. His delusion, this teeth eater, acted rationally. It could hurt him because of Ole’s desperation. To get my high, I had to study long into the night and endure rigorous quizzing, all for a piece of parchment. And now, with my degree, Ole must answer to me just as he was bound to the Teeth Eater.

I believe that my initial suspicions of Soulless Syndrome are likely a false positive. I am a careful diagnostician, but the patient seems genuinely convinced of his delusions. I will continue to prescribe the necessary medication, though I might suggest further treatment and oversight under my auspices if delusions persist.