« Hold still Tim…it’s almost done.”

The petulant assistant wiped sweat beads from his unibrow. Tim’s colors had been flushed out by the anesthetic needle and now he looked drained of all blood, will and wits. Wide-eyed as if doom was irremediably running towards him, no amount of distractions volunteered by the voluptuous assistant made blood return in any of his members.

And then they all heard the crack. That sharp sound of a bone forced to give. It invariably precedes a minute of heavy silence. According to protocol, the assistant swished around presenting the Teeth Jar at patient’s eye level framed by her suave strategically tailored uniform.

“Shall we add this one to dentist Gill’s collection? Hum…?”

That last exhalation turned into a question mark always had its effect on patients: they gave in. Mindlessly yes. Always. Even the kids! And she paid them back for their donation with a sly concocted smile and a spare sterile cotton ball. And Tim’s blood at once all returned, some places more than others…He closed the door with a drooping half crooked smile as the extracted tooth clanked with the others.

And the day continued as briskly as any other rainy cold autumn day in the city’s most renowned dentist clinic. The suctioned bloodied saliva got reduced down to a thick syrup in its biohazard container. The assistant worked her magic with every client until mid afternoon when, at the dentist’s nod, she slipped into her fashionably oversized grey trench coat and left with a certain sadness on her flawless lips grabbing the Teeth Jar on the way out.

The next patient, of course, made a remark about her missing. Gill answered absently while looking out his large aquarium-like office window at a gloomy fishlike creature standing on the other side of the wet street. Raindrops where bouncing high on its umbrella, a butterfly sharing it’s shelter. His dark useless raincoat was dripping as much as the sky and its blob eyes fixated empty on the dentist. Gill hurriedly finished the job and closed shop.

While he returned with the saliva reduction for the ceremony, the figure had not moved. The incantation, getting shorter with every year of use, made the monster stiffen.

The dentist knew the trade offered was accepted when the resting blue butterfly was slapped between the demon’s paws. Shortly after he’d rolled back the rug on the sketched pentagram, his lovely assistant returned: her raincoat dripping as much as the sky, a dead butterfly pinned on her collar. She rinsed off the Jar and put it back on the shelf ready for another year’s worth of bloodied teeth. She slipped into her ‘50s inspired nurse costume and took her post near the entrance waiting for the neighbourhood kids and their fathers. In every trickster’s bag the enslaved ToothFairy dumped a handful of sweets and a sigh.