It’s not kleptomania

by Christine Cheng
Art by Amanda Dai
Issue: Kalopsia (Spring 2017)

Hello. I am the tooth fairy.

What do I do? I’m glad you asked. Most of you guys only know about a small fraction of my job.

For starters, the tooth fairy is not your stereotypical pink fluttering creature. We’re not always girls, we’re not always boys. We’re just the tooth fairy.

Some technical details: for work each day, I go around the world, and eventually lug around a thousand teeth back to my house in San Francisco. Believe it or not, it’s a bar called Teeth, and actually exists on Google Maps. If you don’t believe me, search it up. It even has a description that says, “a laid-back bar with lots of games and patio.” Come visit sometime. I live in a room in the back, to the right of the bathrooms. It’s just a tad bit larger than your usual studio apartment, with displays in the front and my workshop in the back. It’s where I make my special cloth, sew it into clothes, and sell the products.

That’s right kids, I make holographic, gossamer-like clothes, straight from your lost teeth. Now you may be like, “how? That’s not possible! Teeth are made of enamel! And dentine, which no one really knows about!” (refer to Dentyne, or my name. Not the gum.) Well, you took the words straight out of my mouth.

Don’t worry, my child. There’s still some form of an explanation, or at least I feel like it is:

I feed this spherical small plant by funneling thousands of teeth into the top. It almost looks like an invisible ball whose outsides are thickly entwined with shimmering green vines. Who knows where it came from, or for how long it existed, but rumor has it that Jack stole it from the giant along with his presumably dead goose. After a few minutes of sounding like rocks being pulverized in a blender, it creates one bolt of cloth that creatures of custom, legend, or tales wear. Magic! The fabric make us quite forgettable, so no one knows exactly what we look like. Even if you’ve seen us before, it works in the same way as how you’ve probably forgotten your preschool teacher’s face. Déjà vu is also common in a place where you got a quick glimpse of one of us.

A new customer typically shows up once or twice a day, considering how slowly word spreads around by mythical means. Customers pay with gilded leaves that you keep on a string for safekeeping. Once a tooth fairy collects a certain number (it fluctuates with inflation, so the more I procrastinate, the more regrets I have), they can dump the leaves into the same tooth- grinding plant. After three days, a new tooth fairy is incarnated with a burst of intensely colored confetti, and I get to retire. Think of the all the potential when people can’t remember your face. I’m planning to eternally live in a jelly bean factory and claim I’m an official taste tester.

Some more information: I only pay for teeth that have been safely tucked under cushy pillows. No pillow, no service. Sorry bud, I have strict rules if you want that money, because your money comes into good use sometimes. Each household is allocated a predetermined amount per tooth based off the gummy-pink spreadsheet which the bar’s current owner kindly printed out and laminated for me. The money I give out comes from the few customers I get who pay me with it.

Once I forked over a hundred dollars to a five year old. They ate the bill. It wasn’t worth it.

Overall, my life is pretty sweet.

But don’t eat sugar. It ruins your teeth.