Work Text:
[Recorder clicks on.]
MARTIN BLACKWOOD:
Another one… (SIGHS.) I really wish Tim would help with these more- or anyone really. I feel like I do the most of them since Jon is… gone, and they make me sick. It's like- it's like, I don't know- they're feeding off of me. (LAUGHS NERVOUSLY.)
(PAUSES.) Already on, are you? Yeah… Yeah, of course you are.
Martin Blackwood, archival assistant of the Magnus Institute, London, recording the statement of uh-... (PAPERS RUSTLE.) P.A.D.? Regarding his… teeth . Statement originally given December 10, 2011.
Statement begins.
MARTIN BLACKWOOD (STATEMENT):
Teeth. Right. Teeth are why I’m here.
I mean, you’ve probably gotten people with weirder reasons for coming in and making a statement, huh? Spooks and scares and… I don’t know. Things a lot more sinister than teeth, or things with teeth that are actually scary. Like- vampires. They have scary teeth. Because teeth by themselves really aren’t all that frightening, or they shouldn’t be. They’re just tiny bones after all…
Did you know that you have 12 more teeth as an adult than you did as a child? It's crazy to think how even more of those things can cram in your mouth- filling the already tiny space… How they keep growing, no matter what obstacle is in their path. Other teeth, your lips, your cheeks… They're like weeds. Crushing, biting, chewing, chomping weeds. At least it doesn't hurt to remove weeds like it does teeth.
I don’t really know how to start this- I mean… where do I start? I’ve had dreams about teeth for years now. I don’t know how many, at least five. But it’s only recently that the dreams have started to really bother me.
I guess- I guess my teeth dreams started a few years after I broke my front teeth. Kids break their teeth a lot, doing silly things or having accidents. But not me, I didn’t break my teeth myself. I was always careful when it came to my teeth. I didn’t chip them or have any accident that would leave me with little pieces of white in my hand. I was careful. I took care of them. It was the first ambition that I could actually achieve, see- I wanted to have perfect teeth all my life. No cavities, no fillings, and no broken teeth.
It was an innocent dream, something that could have been done, but…
I had to be around 10 years old at the time when that dream was taken from me. I don’t even remember what happened- what I did, but the next thing I know, I was on the floor after being slapped by my screaming father, and all I could feel in my mouth was pain. On my tongue there were the rocky, broken pieces of my front teeth and I was sobbing.
I don’t know if you have ever broken or chipped your teeth, but it hurts. It hurt far more than my dad’s slap ever did. The exposed nerve endings in my teeth burned whenever they touched something, and it was so hard to keep them from touching anything. Hard to eat, hard to talk- oh and brushing around my unbroken teeth was a task in itself, too.
It was his wedding ring that did it. That poorly placed gold band… If he hadn’t had it on, or if my dad slapped me with the other hand, or if he was even a few centimeters off- I would still have my front teeth. And I wouldn’t be here today because of those dreams.
I mean, I have my teeth. They’re just not my teeth. The broken pieces of my front teeth were thrown out and a dentist fixed my teeth, replacing the missing bits with this white filling that hardened into my new pseudo-teeth. It stands out against the roots of my real teeth, it’s whiter. If you look, you can see it. You can tell it’s fake. You can even see the jagged property lines of where my teeth end and the fake ones begin. I try not to look at it. I don't- I don't like looking at them, and I don't like others looking at them either.
I’m not trying to make a sob story here, but you need the context. It doesn’t make sense without it. My dreams being shattered like my frail teeth… You need to know. You also need to know that these weren’t my baby teeth, something while- it would have been just as wrong to be slapped and to have my teeth broken, would have at least meant that I could have had my adult teeth untouched.
I think I was around 15 when I started having my normal teeth dreams. I say ‘normal’, not like the dreams are what any rational person would be likely to have, but because I had them so often I expected them. They weren’t scary. If anything… they were almost nice.
In these dreams, I’d always be pulling out my teeth. I remember them so clearly… My teeth would be rotten and bloody in my mouth. Covered with thick, papery plaque that peeled off like algae. I would pull them out of my mouth and they’d be larger in my hands than they should be- dark and disgusting, while my mouth filled with blood from the gaping holes where the teeth had once nested in their filth. It was so rancid and disgusting- but it gave me something I did enjoy. I got to feel that exhilarating feeling that was removing my own teeth, something that I ached for since I had long lost all of my baby teeth.
While the dreams were gross and bloody, they satisfied the weird craving I had to pull my teeth. I couldn't even call them nightmares or bad dreams, because they weren’t. They were gorey, sure… But they didn’t make me afraid. Honestly, they were favourable to all of the actual nightmares I had. But that’s something different.
I liked my normal teeth dreams. I know it’s weird, but I did. Sometimes, when there would be a gap between them, I would even miss having them. What they turned into though… Makes me wish I never have to dream about teeth again.
The dreams changed slowly. It was like… like a dramatic build up, like my brain was trying to test and see what would actually scare me. My normal dreams bled into ones that began to feel painful. Teeth being connected to their sockets with long, stringy pieces of my gums that would just not break. I’d be pulling on my tooth, trying to free it from my mouth, but the gum would just keep going and going like that one magic trick with the handkerchief. And it would hurt. For all the bloodiness my teeth dreams had, they never hurt. These- it felt like the small, burning pain that came with picking the uneven pieces of skin around your nails; when the skin grows long as you pull it and it slices along your finger.
I wish I could say that the pain was only in my dreams, but when I would wake up in the morning I could feel my gums aching.
Even those dreams were better than what came after.
I guess it was after I got ‘used’ to those new teeth dreams, that these ones began. At first, I thought they had returned to my normal dreams. The long, stringy piece of gum keeping my teeth connected wasn’t there and my teeth pulled easily under my fingers. They felt like wet, hot pieces of charcoal in my mouth. The cavities made my teeth feel extremely porous and gross in my mouth. But as I would pull these teeth… They would just come back again. I know how dreams work, they don’t make sense, but this-. I was pulling the same teeth again and again. The tooth would be in my hand and I could feel it there in my mouth again- wobbly and loose and teeming with decay.
Over and over I would pull the same teeth from my mouth. The more I pulled, the more rotten they would be. Worse than the slick shells of teeth with hollow, decayed centers, was the pain. The pain in the gum dreams was nothing to this. Each time I pulled a tooth, the more painful the task became. I would be in tears, sticking my hand down my hot, contracting throat to pull out the dead teeth, one by one. It felt real. Like I was really pulling my own teeth. For as much as it hurt, the teeth didn’t show any resistance. They didn’t bed down, their roots weren’t holding on for life, and they weren’t solid. What should have been an easy extraction was, save for a better expression- pulling teeth.
That’s how the entire dream went. It felt like a lifetime before I woke up, and when I did- my entire mouth was sore. My very teeth ached, it was worse than the pain I had felt when my front teeth were broken. My entire mouth was a raw wound for a pain that didn’t happen outside of my head.
I wish the pain was the worst part, I wish it was the only thing that followed my dream. But after I left my bed to go check my teeth in my bathroom mirror, to see that they were all there and more or less white and without the black stain of cavities, I went back to my room and tried to overcome the throbbing pain in my mouth. As I sat on the side of my bed and rummaged for the bottle of painkillers I keep in my nightstand, I saw it poking out from the corner of my pillow.
A black tooth.
Relief forgotten, I put down the red pills and reached over to move my pillow. The tooth sat there… and I picked it up. Where it had been, there was something that looked like a grease stain on my sheets. As I held the tooth in my hand, the pain in my mouth rose. My mouth was numb with it, but I didn’t notice. All I could do was stare at the diseased tooth in the palm of my hand. There was no way it wasn’t mine, afterall, just by looking at it I knew exactly where it had once belonged in my mouth. And the way it felt under my fingers… Touching it made me shiver, it was empty and light and completely rotted through.
It was like some morbid tooth fairy. Leaving me my own tooth in exchange for my pain.
I couldn’t deny it. I mean, how could I? It was my tooth. Whose else could it be? Especially after my dream and the pain that racked my mouth. I didn’t know what to do with it though. Throwing it away… felt wrong. I was worried someone would find it. They’d find the tooth and wonder where it came from. I wouldn’t be able to tell them the truth, because they wouldn’t believe me. So, I stuck the black, little thing in an old gift box and hid it in the back of my closet.
I wish that that was the first and only time I would have that dream. Every night I wish that I won’t have to dream about it again. I pray to dream of different nightmares, of anything else that isn’t teeth… And every day I wake up with a sore mouth and a new tooth under my pillow.
I hate it, I hate it. I can’t believe I ever used to enjoy the thought of pulling teeth. I can’t stand it now. I get sick having to think about it and I dread going to sleep. I tried everything to avoid these dreams, but they just come again and again every night. I tried not sleeping, staying up as long as I could- but I always crash in the end. I tried keeping my mouth as clean as possible. I’ll brush my teeth 20 times a day and rinse with rubbing alcohol… But instead of helping with my dreams, it just made me more aware about my real teeth. Now if I don’t brush like that and burn my gums with bleach or other chemicals, I start to feel it. I feel the ill, crawling rot of cavities spreading over my teeth.
If I don’t keep them clean, then they will rot and die and I will have to pull them. I’m so scared, so scared that they’ll turn black and when I do pull them they’ll grow right back. I can’t do that, not anymore than I have to. I do it hundreds of times a night, I can’t let it contaminate my days either. I’ll keep them clean. I’ll starve off the rot.
I… I realize how much of a crazy story this is, but I needed to tell someone. I uh- I’ve brought along a box of some of the teeth I’ve collected. I don’t know- I don’t know what to do with them, and I figured that if you can help, then maybe you might find some use in them. If you can't… I don't want them back, keep them. I have enough already.
Hey, before I go… do you have a washroom I could use? I need to brush my teeth.
MARTIN BLACKWOOD:
(VOICE SHAKING.) Statement… ends.
(SLOW, LABOURED BREATHING.) I… P.A.D. which is… I-I don't… Sorry….
I think P.A.D. is a pseudonym, or it's at least the statement givers' initials. He left no contact information for follow up, just…
(SLIDING SOUND OF A BOX BEING MOVED. CONTENTS SHAKE AND RATTLE.)
This box of teeth. I don't- I don't want to open it. Oh, I really don't want to open it. I just- fuck. I have to open it.
(EXHALES.)
(SOUND OF LID BEING LIFTED OFF BOX.)
Oh- oh dear God… Yeah- yeah, yup… (SOUND OF LID BEING SLAMMED BACK ON TO BOX.) Definitely teeth.
I... I thought this statement might help with research into the Unknowing. We're looking for skin and- well, I don't know why but some part of me thought that teeth were close enough to skin that it was worth a try. (LAUGHS SHRILLY. LAUGHTER ENDS, SOUNDING ALMOST LIKE A SOB.)
It… the dirt of it just makes me think of Prentiss all over again. Her and her- worms. My teeth… Oh, God after that they feel like they're crawling with them. I… I need to have a lie down.
[Recorder clicks off.]