So Monday morning you were enthusiastically running that stuff up and down your healthy clean gums so that when you smiled for Mr. Nosigawa at the pitch that day he would not see a man who is incapable of keeping the dregs of an overindulgent American breakfast out of his teeth. No, it would be the sparkling mouth of a winner. You were working some chunk of hotcake from behind your bottom back molars when you felt something tug. Something a little unusual. It wasn't even coming from inside your mouth, but rather it came from that mysterious conduit you knew of only as the floss hole. Sometimes it got stuck. Sometimes it would flow freely. But other than that there was no real connection between you and what unravelled beneath this white hard plastic.
The floss eased from a tug to the resonance of a lightly plucked guitar string. Without knowing why, you felt the urgent need to listen closely. You held your ear to the string coated in your saliva, where a slight minty fragrance remained, but you got nothing. The vibrations became more sporadic, something about them you were convinced felt like words. Like listening to a muffled conversation through a wall with a glass. You thought for a second, then went into the kitchen, rifled around in the pantry and then sat down with the floss.
* * *
You had taken a foam cup and pushed the floss through the bottom of it with a toothpick. Tied the end. You were already running late and your shirt and pants remained unironed on a chair in the living room but you couldn't've cared less about that. You held the cup to one ear and you were not at all surprised when the words came.
They were only numbers. Prerecorded numbers read in a monotone female voice. It had behind it the crackle of radio interference. It was a numbers station broadcast. Without the key these numbers were useless...but you already knew the key? Your brain was its own one-time pad. As you began deciphering the messages you realised that they were in fact instructions being delivered to you. As your pupils shrank you stood up from the table and knew then with such clarity the tasks ahead of you.
They were only numbers. Prerecorded numbers read in a monotone female voice. It had behind it the crackle of radio interference. It was a numbers station broadcast. Without the key these numbers were useless...but you already knew the key? Your brain was its own one-time pad. As you began deciphering the messages you realised that they were in fact instructions being delivered to you. As your pupils shrank you stood up from the table and knew then with such clarity the tasks ahead of you.
* * *
You found the pliers in the garage and they were a bit greasy but you didn't have time to wipe them clean. This was pertaining to matters right then and there could not be any further hesitations. You returned to the bathroom facing the mirror and with the pliers clamped tightly you proceeded to yank out your back bottom wisdom tooth. With such swiftness, such a clean pull as it cracked off your jawbone. Like you'd done it a million times before.
The blood did not bother you though it did make it difficult to work as you returned to the kitchen and made a number of attempts to split the tooth open with various utensils until you were finally successful. Inside the tooth came something you didn't have time to contemplate, though really you knew all along all about it. It was something organic, though also something containing great knowledge or information. Some kind of squirming parasite, and you knew you had to get it to them quickly or else it would perish and its contents would be lost along with it.
You put the creature into a regular envelope, then opening the bottom draw of your office desk you found hidden at the back a larger, silver lined envelope you had never seen before. It contained a mysterious round marking in the top corner and no address. You placed the smaller envelope inside it then sealed it shut, then you ran outside to the nearest post box where you rid of it.
After that your instructions were to remain inisde your house and bleed yourself dry. If you were not dead within twenty four hours the floss advised you to seek out other forms of self-termination. Eventually you went with taking pills, and cutting your own head off in the middle of the street.
The blood did not bother you though it did make it difficult to work as you returned to the kitchen and made a number of attempts to split the tooth open with various utensils until you were finally successful. Inside the tooth came something you didn't have time to contemplate, though really you knew all along all about it. It was something organic, though also something containing great knowledge or information. Some kind of squirming parasite, and you knew you had to get it to them quickly or else it would perish and its contents would be lost along with it.
You put the creature into a regular envelope, then opening the bottom draw of your office desk you found hidden at the back a larger, silver lined envelope you had never seen before. It contained a mysterious round marking in the top corner and no address. You placed the smaller envelope inside it then sealed it shut, then you ran outside to the nearest post box where you rid of it.
After that your instructions were to remain inisde your house and bleed yourself dry. If you were not dead within twenty four hours the floss advised you to seek out other forms of self-termination. Eventually you went with taking pills, and cutting your own head off in the middle of the street.
