2003-09-08 - 10:43 p.m. - the magician's teeth.
A long time ago there was a magician. This magician wasn't so much skilled in the art of magic as he was skilled in the act of dealing cards. Now you are asking yourself, certainly, what is so magical about the dealing of cards? You see, this magician had the special talent of being able to deal cards with his teeth. See, this is how he was able to make all of his card tricks work because his hands were always a little bit slow but he had one of the most famous smiles in all of the state of Ohio. People would watch his teeth as he dealt the cards and never even notice that a trick was occuring.The magician was very proud of his talent and used it to make people happy. He brought joy to all sorts of people and over time people grew to love the magician with the famous smile and the ability to deal cards with his teeth.
Sadly though, the slow handed magician was lonely because everybody loved him, and he loved everybody, but he had never fallen in love or held a woman's hand.
One day the magician met a beautiful girl. She watched him deal cards from his teeth and lost herself in the reflection of light that always was gleaming from these teeth. She didn't even care that a trick was occuring, she just loved his teeth. After a few conversations and a dinner date, the two had fallen in love.
Now this girl really wanted to hold the magician's hand, but the magician's hands were slow and so they didn't want to be held quite yet. Eventually though, the blood started heating up in his hands, and after the two had been in love for quite some time, they finally held hands. Silly you think? Holding hands isn't like having sex, but to these two it was, in many ways just as important, if not more important than sex.
And so they held hands and the magician really liked it, and so did his lover. They held hands often, but over time they fell out of love with each other and nothing, not even the holding of hands--which was now something cold and mechanical, a mere formality in a dying relationship--could not keep them together.
After the two parted ways somewhat amicablly (they divided their mutual things, she kept the photographs and silverware, he the camera and the television set), the magician really wanted to hold hands.
Instead of just going out and looking for people to hold hands with he tried to continue working on his magical card tricks. This was somewhat succesful for a while. He became more skilled with his teeth until eventually he had exhausted all options and people began to grow bored with his act. His hands having sped up throughout the previous failed relationship, the magician then moved his act to his hands. He was deft and impressive, but the magic was gone. See, the magic was in his teeth. Anyone can learn to use sleight of hand, but how many have teeth so beautiful that they are the trick themselves?
Realizing that nobody loved him for his hand card tricks, he tried to go back to his teeth. Unfortunately, he had, in performing so much with his hands, started thinking too much of his hands. Now, whenever the magician would think about holding hands with a girl his mouth would wet itself with saliva--that ever so vital fluid of memory and conditioning--and so it was impossible for him to do card tricks with his teeth without destroying the deck of cards.
Having given too much to his hands, and lost the beauty that was his mouth, the magician gave up magic all together and attempted only to hold the hands of girls. This became so important to him that he was salivating all of the time. Over time the saliva began to transform and stopped being something useful to aid in digestion, and became instead a thick sugary syrup, like the white cream in the middle of doughnuts, that stuck to his teeth and dripped out of the corners of his mouth.
All is lost for the magician now. Nobody wants to hear him speak or watch him perform magic. There is a certain sadness in his eyes that is difficult to place, but if you talk to the right people they will tell you that it is because he gave up everything for his hands. The people who say this are refering to his teeth, the things that made him beautiful, white bits of his skull exposed to everyone. See, the people who say this have seen him smile recently. They say it is not even smile anymore, but a hole of rotting and decay.
This is what too much sugar will do to your teeth.
Some people still like to talk to him and swear that someday his teeth will grow back. Teeth can grow back, right? We all know they can't really, but perhaps it is possible for these teeth that held so much magic once might be better than other teeth.
So everyone who loved the magician hope that someday his teeth will grow back, but are cautious.
We think often about the effects that our hands can have on our teeth.
We think often of the ways that we can destroy beautiful things, especially ourselves.
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