Toothman

You see him in the street, walking up and down, searching. His long greasy hair hangs like curtains over a moonlit window. He bends to pick something up. Smiling, he shoves it into the pocket of his tattered jeans. When his smile lands on you, you notice that his mouth is pink. You realize that he has no teeth. Your mother pulls you along, tells you not to stare, but you can’t help it. You’re a curious thing.

A horrible thought seeps into your brain, settles over your eyes like a black cloud. He must be searching for teeth. Collecting them, planning to make them his own. You imagine him at the end of the day, pulling a handful of teeth from his pocket, each one a different color. A white incisor. A yellow canine. A rotten brown molar. No two teeth appear the same. He takes each one of them between his filthy fingertips and presses them into his gums, in the divots where his own teeth used to be.

Then, you think of something worse. 

The loose tooth in your own mouth. Had he sensed it? Or maybe it was just obvious to him—the kind of knowledge one gains through years of experience. Every child your age loses their teeth, after all. 

You can see it now: him lurking in the distance, following you home, careful not to be spotted by you or your mother. 

When night falls, he will slide in through your window, tiptoe up to your bedside, and you’ll know that he’s coming but you’ll be too afraid to make a sound. He’ll pluck the tooth from your mouth, root and all, and nothing in this life will ever hurt worse. He’ll smile, his mouth full of misshapen teeth—teeth that don’t match, that don’t belong, and he’ll place your tooth among them. The thought makes you shudder.

You turn to find him, to get another look, to put your mind at ease, but he’s nowhere to be found.

You swallow hard, wiggle your loose tooth with your tongue…

And prepare yourself to scream.