Sunday 5 June 2011

Dog Teeth

Alfred lives alone. On Saturday mornings, to relieve his boredom, Alfred would go to the park with his binoculars. His binoculars were powerful. They needed to be. His hobby was going to the park to look at dogs. Looking at the dogs through his binoculars, he would count how many teeth each dog had. In Alfred’s coat pocket he kept a notepad and pencil. Alfred would make a note of the type of dog he saw, and if he didn’t know the breed, he’d draw what the dog looked like. Next to the picture or descriptor, he’d write down how many teeth he had seen on the dog.

In the evening, Alfred would fry some processed ham, boil an egg, and sit down to watch some television he had recorded during the week. The video player was temperamental, but he liked the fuzzy soft focus it gave to Phillip Schofield’s face. After his TV dinner, Alfred would then go upstairs to his bedroom and begin making all the teeth he had seen in the park. Alfred would use papier-mâché and chicken wire for this. Alfred tried to make each tooth 120 times the size it would normally be. These teeth, once dry, would then be stored in the attic, along with all his other teeth.

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