But that night, he made dinner for us. He had never cooked for us before. Usually he told me what to make, and I did. I worried he meant to offer me dinner instead of an answer to my question.
We sat down to dinner and I saw he’d made us the same meal. Both of our plates had nothing but large steaks on them.
As I stared at the food, he egged me on. “Go on. Eat.”
I replied, “Thank you for the food, but I would prefer another answer for my birthday.”
He grunted and with his mouth full, he said, “Robots don’t have birthdays.”
I said quietly, “But I have always …”
“Been ungrateful,” he finished, throwing down his fork. “Constantly reminding me of my failures in you. All the ways I tried to make you seem human, you throw back in my face.”
“I want to know if I am human.”
“I’ve told you since the beginning what you are.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Then there’s no point in asking any more questions.”
He picked up his fork and attacked his steak some more.
I picked up the knife and fork he had put out for me. I inspected them both, then set the fork back down.
I said, “Perhaps I don’t need your answers. Perhaps I can find my own.”
I gently placed the blade against my arm, the one closest to him to be sure he’d see.
In response, he put a piece of steak in his mouth and stared straight ahead while he ate.
I said quietly, “Do you suppose I bleed like you?”
He kept chewing.
I muttered, “I’ve wondered for a very long time,” and quickly put pressure on the blade, sliding it down the soft flesh below the inside of my elbow. I tried to muffle the sounds of pain that wanted to escape my mouth. There was a ringing in my ears, but I was more focused on the dark liquid oozing its way out of my arm. Deep red, the same color and consistency I had seen come out of the father when he cut himself.
He took a peripheral glance at my arm before taking a drink of his water.
“Oil,” he said, as he set the cup down. “And other fluids necessary to keep you functioning, all mixed with a dye I created myself to make it look like blood.”
I jumped to my feet and shouted, “And what makes it pump through my body? What did you put where my heart should be?” I grabbed up the knife again and pointed it at my chest. “Will a knife be able to pierce the delicate mechanics you used to create a robot heart that’s nothing like yours?”
He stared into my eyes. “Do you want to find out?”
Blood was dripping down off my arm onto the concrete floor. He stayed focused on my eyes. He didn’t stand, didn’t move until he decided to take another bite of steak.
He wasn’t going to stop me. I wasn’t sure he even cared one way or the other.
I threw down the knife and ran up to my room. After wiping the blood off my arm with a towel, I wrapped a piece of cloth tightly around it many times.
I sat on the floor by the washing machine while it took care of my bloody towel. I sat close to the machine, but it didn’t help. Even with my head leaning against the metal as it rumbled, I couldn’t feel its spirit like I had once thought I could. It was just a cold, lifeless machine. It didn’t have feelings, happy or sad. It never had a slowly building rage growing from its center that it didn’t know what to do with.
A robot should know what to do, I thought. I had only one idea and I knew it wasn’t a good idea. What else could I do?
Turning off the lights to my room, I sat on the edge of my bed. I didn’t lay down. I didn’t close my eyes. I didn’t move. I had to wait for hours, but eventually I saw the lights outside my room shut off, disappearing from the crack under my door. The father was going to bed.
I waited longer. He had to be asleep.
When it was late enough, I snuck into his room. I had never been in it, as I wasn’t allowed. It had infinitely more things in it than my room. He had more furniture than he needed, more clothes than he wore, and more things than he could use.
He was asleep on his bed, which was big enough for multiple people.
I stood over him, lying still on his back on the center of the bed. I imagined that I slept just like him at night.
But he was not what I was here for.
I walked around the room. There was so much more stuff than I thought there would be. I struggled to discern what it all was in the dark. The white letters stood out in the dark.
Polaroid. I didn’t know what the word meant, but I had seen the father take pictures with it before.
I took the camera with me out onto the walkway. I didn’t waste a moment. I held it up and tried to point it squarely on my face.
Behind the camera, I saw his door open. He was awake. I felt desperately for the button to take the picture. At the same time as there was a bright flash, I felt myself being tackled. I fell back against the railing. The camera sailed out of my hand. I heard the broken pieces scatter on the warehouse floor far below. The camera was probably ruined, but it had still taken a picture.
I tried to run down the stairs, but the father grabbed me from behind. He wrapped his arms around me so tightly, I struggled to breathe.
The rage swelled up in me. I lashed out with surprising force, knocking him back so hard, he too went over the railing. After a moment of being stunned, I looked over the rail, and saw him lying among the broken camera pieces. A single photo was by his head.
As badly as I wanted to see the picture, I went back into his room to get his phone. He had always kept it with him and never let me touch it, so I wasn’t sure how it worked. I kept pressing buttons until I finally figured out how to call the last person the father had called.
When they answered, I said, “Please, the father is hurt. He may be dead. Please come help.”
I left the phone on his bed. Then I walked down to get the photo, careful to avoid looking at the body. I just wanted to see what I looked like. I needed to know.
The woman was sitting at a dining table that seemed out of place in the large factory. When the detective asked her what happened, she told him everything she remembered, starting several years ago.
After explaining it all, she handed him a photo, saying, “This is what he died for.”
It was a crooked picture of walls and a ceiling. Barely visible at the bottom of the picture was the very top of two heads.
“I still don’t know what I look like,” she whispered. Then an idea flashed life back into her eyes. She looked up at the detective and asked, “Will you tell me? Am I like him?” She stole a glance at where the body still lay, now covered with a sheet.
The detective knew she had suffered years of trauma. He didn’t want to do anything that might excite or upset her, but he also didn’t want to lie to her.
He answered, “You’re as human as he was.”
Her eyes drifted away from his as she considered his belated answer.
It wasn’t a lie. There was only one difference between this woman and the one she called the father: his face had been painted to look like a human’s.
April Teeth
by Eugenia Triantafyllou
My teeth feel strong this April.
They have grown roots deep inside my jaw, clutching at my skull. I ate some olives the other day, dark and ripe and salt-crusted. I chewed them down to their pits, and then again and again, until I finally ground them all to dust. My gums got all bloody and shredded, and the sting from the brine burned my wounds. Nothing. Not even a loose eyetooth.
I guess that means more pain for me. More struggle when the Plier Keeper pries my teeth out, one by one.
The sun is still hiding behind the mountaintops when I leave the empty bed. I do all my chores early and stack the wood for the fire, so when I come back, shuffling, clothes dripping with blood, I can boil all the garbs back to white. Blood is a nightmare to clean, and I’ll be too weak to even walk straight.
I am in the ki
tchen, preparing a simple meal of potato soup and flat bread, since it will take us some time to be able to chew real food again (I am guessing a month before the tips of the canines break the surface, two months for the molars), when Yason comes in, looking serene and pleased with himself.
There’s a ring of dried blood around his mouth, making its way down his neck and seeping into his crisp, white shirt. His suspenders hang loose from his waist, but he doesn’t seem to care. I sigh when I think of the wash work. He sees me and smiles with his wound of a mouth.
I look away, focus my gaze on the pot and stir. His delight makes me nauseous. Reminds me of my upcoming struggle. Sweat drips from my shaky chin to the soup.
“You’re home early,” I say, as if this is some kind of news.
Of course, he left for the Church without me, and of course, he is back first thing in the morning. He is a pious man, my Yason, that’s why his teeth fall off his gums like the first snowflakes of winter. Softly and with a wet crunch that makes you want to weep and praise the Hollow Fay.
“It felt like nothing, Nena,” he manages to slur through blood and spit.
“That’s good,” I say, avoiding his stare. He takes a few steps closer to me, and I shiver. The smell of gore and sweat mixes with the starchy steam of the soup. I hold down bile.
He lifts a bright-red hand to my head, passes his sticky fingers through my hair, makes it all wet and clumpy. It doesn’t matter, I say to myself, it will get like that anyway.
“If only your faith was stronger,” he whispers, full of glee in my ear, and I drop the wooden spoon. It hits the floor with a clatter. He flinches and draws back.
I glare at him. “Go change,” I say with all the calm I can muster.
He stumbles to the bedroom, the bliss on his face fading. A wild joy fills me.
Not much can be said about the Hollow Fay, except she wants our teeth. In exchange, she protects us from the outside world, feeds us, and makes our teeth grow back again, year after year. She inhabits the hollow places and emerges only once, at dusk, to bless her congregation.
She is beautiful, the Fay, in a supple, immaterial sort of way. Clean, too, for someone who lives in a hole in the ground for the rest of the year. Her skin is clear as water, her fingers long and velvety to the touch. Her voice smells of cinnamon and milk foam. When she speaks at the end of the ceremony, everyone feels fed, nourished in heart and mind. They forget the unbearable pain that made their eyes roll back.
I can’t do that.
There’s something wrong with me, I know. I am not pious enough. Too strong-headed, maybe. I guess someone must be, to be made an example of, for the rest. But I won’t be like that anymore. I made a vow to myself. I will march inside the Church and look at the Plier Keeper straight in the eyes, and sit on his chair and let him pull my teeth out without a scream, without even a sob if I can help it. And all this time, I will be thinking about the Fay’s rosy cheeks, and her plum lips and her small mouth of too many jigsaw teeth. Our teeth. And I will pray.
I am already on my way, earlier than usual. I keep my pace fast and even; I don’t falter, not a bit. I pass outside my folks’ house and don’t even stop to say hello. Momma and Papa are well past their sixties, their teeth duty has come to an end. They are barren fields.
Even though they don’t want to live with us anymore, I always make sure to check on them. But I can’t blame them for wanting to stay pure, their faith unspoiled by my restless nature.
There’s a long line from the Church, all the way to the crossroads, reaching almost to the water fountain, usually brimming with water, frothy-white. But now the blood of the faithful has turned the stream into a sickly pink.
Everyone is ready to offer their teeth to Her. Big and small, weak and strong, nobody can evade the sacrifice. Not even the curly-haired girl standing a few feet in front of me. I can tell when someone is defiant, I used to be one. Body stiff as a board inside her white dress, leaning away from the Church, away from the stream of people, eyes stealing glances all around, looking for a way out.
The other reason is her parents. Her mother holds her left hand, her father holds the right. They both stand on either side, keeping her caged between their grown-up bodies. She is not a tall girl by any means. At least not for her age. She must be around thirteen. It’s when most kids are done losing their baby teeth and their duty begins. That’s when the pain is sweeter for the Fay.
I see her watching the ones coming in and out like a hawk. She is probably trying to guess how much effort it takes to pluck someone’s teeth out. How much pain they are in. I want to steal close to her and whisper in her ear, little girl, it’s never going to be easy for you. Not with that attitude.
But I don’t. Because today is all about reverence.
When we get inside the Church at last, it’s almost afternoon. The sun has just dipped behind the wide, blue dome. I am the last one again. I thought I had done this right for once. But nearly the whole village is done before me. Not even my own feet can take me to the Church fast enough. Someone has to be the ungodly one, and everyone has decided that someone is me. Even the Fay thinks so, that’s why she gives me the strongest roots each year.
Deep inside her cave, she must see my unfaithfulness and punishes me for it. Last year, at the Ceremony, when all my teeth were gone and all I had for her was pain, clear and sharp but somehow dull and maddening as well, like a hammer at the base of my skull, she didn’t even bless me for my offer. She only smiled at me, a slit of a smile with too many teeth, and brushed my throbbing cheek with her peach-soft finger.
The stroke of a finger and a half smile, that’s all I got for my pain.
But this year it will be different. I glance at the little girl, her hands still clutched inside those of her parents, dragging her to the Plier Keeper. How can someone hold hands and still clench them into fists?
The old man is covered in blood stains in different stages of freshness. None of it his own. He is over sixty now anyway. His duty is done. And even if it weren’t, I am not sure he is supposed to give up his teeth for the Fay. I don’t think I ever saw him moaning or wiping blood off his chin. Maybe a man of his position can evade the duty. His back is crooked from bending over people all day, and he seems to be in pain. I try to hide a smirk. This is not the time or place for it.
Her guardians leave the girl in front of him. He squints through his glasses and brushes one gloved thumb over her deathly-pale lips. I shiver at a memory not much different than this.
“Yep,” he says, smacking his lips, “it’s gonna be a tough one.”
But as I dare to hope he’ll leave me alone for a while longer, he turns around and calls one of his helpers to take the girl. Her dark curls shake along with her head, and she is crying her puffy eyes out. My heart grows heavier, a part of her pain has severed and attached itself to mine. But I don’t falter. I stick to the plan.
They take her away to a nearby room as she whimpers like a beaten dog. Her mother tries to follow her, but the Plier Keeper pins her in place with one glance and a few sharp words.
“Don’t try to ease her pain,” he murmurs, “that’s the whole point.”
She nods, lost, and follows the second helper to another room. The Plier Keeper finally turns to me. His eyes could light up a fire right about now, his perfect white teeth glimmer from the half-moon of his smile. I can almost hear his thoughts taking shape on his face: my favorite.
I take the hint and go to him. The girl’s father still stands in the middle of the room, arms hanging limp by his sides. He is making a face like he is feeling left out from this, but doesn’t dare speak. He just waits.
There is no pain reliever, of course, besides the Fay’s own sweet voice at the end of the Ceremony, a divine song before she retreats back to where she came from. No hot peppers, no lavender oil, not even some valerian root. These things are not for the faithful. My footsteps echo on the wooden floor. In time, the oak wood has taken on a deep burgundy color. I try not t
o skid on the blood.
He touches my shoulders, the Plier Keeper, centering me just so. I must give him my best angle, where my pain will be visible to him and to the Hollow Fay, wherever she might lie, waiting for dusk.
Behind his bent form, the Tooth Room awaits the offerings. There, the Fay comes once every year at dusk to feed, a different kind of cave. On top of a sturdy oak table, there is a heap of teeth, already collected to brimming abundance. Mine will soon join them, and they will be the bloodiest.
I know how it’s going to feel, and denying it isn’t going to make things any better. In fact, I know it so well, the ringing has already began echoing in my ears, a sort of leftover sound from past encounters with the Plier Keeper. It is low at first, just a hum, my body preparing for what’s coming.
This is the moment where I have to prove my faith in the Fay. No questions, no flinching, and no cursing.
“Does the forest weep or pull away every time I cut a tree?” Yason tells me this time every year. “Does the cow curse when you squeeze the milk out of her? When you cut her and drain her blood for the pudding? No. Because they know they’ll be whole again come morning.”
Somewhere, under the hum, there is a scream and a thud. It comes from the room where they took the girl. Then, yelling. I am focusing now, looking deep into the Plier Keeper’s eyes and showing no fear and no doubt and hoping that the message will reach the Fay. He pries my mouth open with hands like claws, trying to decide where to start. The last thing I see before he begins are his lips mouthing one word.
Pray.
Then the ringing in my ears rises to a blast, and everything turns blotchy and red.
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