The Man with No Teeth
by Carlo Javier | From Issue One (Fall 2025)
The sink was already red when I came to my senses. Blood flowed from the crevices of my mouth down to my bottom lip, droplets clinging with all their might, before letting go and splattering onto the white porcelain sink. It was a slow scarlet rain until an incisor kissed the ceramic. The canines and premolars fell after. Then the molars dropped down like asteroids. I tried to pick them out from the crimson pool of blood, water, and saliva, but some slipped past my shaky fingers, descending down the pipes, and forever escaping into the dark void. A man stared at me from the mirror. Blood cascaded from his mouth down to his neck. He had an empty grin on his face, his gums red and swollen. They say that the eyes are the windows to the soul and I knew this man did not have one. Only a chasm remained where my teeth used to be, but I felt no pain, only fear.
I woke up with my teeth still in place. The pillow drenched with sweat and the steady drool of saliva from the crease of my mouth. I overslept, came in to work late, and missed a morning meeting. My manager called it a learning experience, something that I can use to help better my performance.
I grew up in a family that welcomed the supernatural. I was taught to never rest my chin on my hands, to never place shoes on the table, and to never sweep at night. These things were believed to be invitations for bad luck and evil spirits. When someone must leave in the middle of a meal, we turn our plates clockwise to ensure their safe travel. Every new year, I jump for growth and good fortune at the stroke of midnight. Pancit is served at every birthday. Chopped liver, thinly sliced pork, julienned carrots hiding in rice noodles that beckoned health and prosperity. An offering was placed in my apartment when I first moved out of my parents’ house. Some money, buried in a jar of uncooked rice. A fallen utensil marked the coming of a visitor, a fork meant a man and a spoon meant a woman.
Over the years, I grew to accept that these rituals are nothing more than just beliefs, and to practice them was to be one with culture. They were all for social harmony. Except one, one that my mom was particularly ominous about: I must never tell anyone if I ever were to dream of my teeth falling out. She said the dream was a curse and the person who receives the story will die. “Tell a plant,” she used to say. The plant is bound to the cycle of life and death but untethered to commitments and social contracts. An ideal substitute for human life. A living thing that can take the curse of the dream, wilt away, and die. The repercussions would be minimal. No one would be hurt.
“Hey,” I said to my manager before lunch. “Are the plants real?”He looked at me with a baffled and mildly irritated expression. “The office plants. Are they real?” I asked him again.“I think so? I don’t know. Go ask the front desk,” he said. “Actually, no, don’t do that. Don’t waste your time on this.”
I spent the rest of the morning thinking about the plants I had at home. The monstera that was the centrepiece in my otherwise barely adorned apartment. The philodendron from my parents. The not-so towering snake plant that deserved more care. The peace lily, the chinese evergreen, and the low-maintenance jade plants that sat by the windows. There were plants outside the building, the grassy lawn, and the trees in the neighbourhood. The more I considered my options, the less enthused I felt about sacrificing innocent plant life.
Lunch was a 15-dollar chicken wrap from a nearby food truck. The house made hot sauce dripped through the checkered wrapping paper and splattered red on the gray pavement like the dream I just had. Then, I realized the monster I was facing was not the sacrifice, but the very superstition itself. It had total dominion over me. A logical mind, one that was grounded in reality, would know that there was no reason to choose. It was just a superstition. I had to challenge the belief and the only way to do that was to tell someone. I could tell a plant, or I could keep the dream to myself and hope that my memories of it would be buried in the back of my mind. Either way, I would be operating within the confines of superstition. I was beholden, and I had to set myself free.
It was half-past six and the sun had already set. I was on my way to my car when my manager called out to me and waved me over. He was in the driver seat of a black BMW, one hand stuck out the window, cigarette confidently nestled between his index and middle fingers. He asked me if everything was okay. I told him that I felt good and that everything was fine, and I meant it. He told me that he just wanted to check, and that he was surprised about my tardiness. He said that it was out of character and that he was always available if I needed any help.
“I just overslept, man, it was my bad. It won’t happen again,” I said with a strong hint of exasperation in my tone.
“Hey I’m not trying to make a big deal out of this, just making sure we don’t have these slip ups.”
“I know,” I said. “Honestly, I had this messed up dream where all my teeth fell out of my mouth. At first, it was one by one, then they all came crashing down into the sink, and there was blood everywhere. I was trying to recover them, but my hands were so shaky—it was just messed up.”
“I’ve heard of this, it just means you need to go to the dentist,” he said.
“Yeah, that might be it,” I replied, feeling the weight of the world lifted off my shoulders.
“Okay, see you Monday. Big meeting in the morning, definitely don’t miss that one,” he said before stepping on the pedal and letting the car’s booming engine announce his departure from the premises.
Monday morning felt like a new beginning. The sun beamed in the middle of the barren sky. There was a bite to the cold breeze. It was endearing and inviting, like an overaggressive puppy who hadn’t yet learned how to convey love and affection. It was a perfect winter day. Perfect, if only for its impermanence. Blink and the sun will set. Blink and the cold will be paralyzing. The warmth of the sun and the chill of the air against my face felt like the perfect balance.
The office was still quiet when I left for my favourite coffeeshop to order a cortado. I don’t always remember the differences between the espresso drinks, but I like the way “cortado” rolls off the tongue. There is a luxury and optimism to it. It is freeing to buy a drink in the morning without thought of the consequences. It is like hearing hellobonjour at the gate right before a flight. It is the feeling of leaving the world behind for something new, different, and hopefully better. I enjoyed a bagel, started on some menial tasks, and outlined a to-do list for the day and the rest of the week. “One thing at a time,” I wrote for myself.
I learned later that day that I had narrowly missed a massive bottleneck on the way to our office. A black BMW ran a red light. It was a multi-car wreck that held up the roads for several hours. Red traffic cones, bright yellow caution tapes, white coats, and blue nitrile gloves. They had to cut through the car to retrieve the driver. They found the other parts in the asphalt later.
Carlo Javier is a writer living in New Westminster, British Columbia Canada. His work has appeared in Ricepaper Magazine and Immersion: An Asian Anthology of Love, Fantasy, and Speculative Fiction. He is a graduate of Capilano University’s School of Communication and was the editor-in-chief of the Capilano Courier in the 2017 to 2018 academic calendar. He writes technical documentation for work and spends his free time weightlifting, cooking, and catching up on sleep. He was born in Quezon City and moved to Canada in 2006.
