Chapter 11
The Mandible Ration
Broadcast fragment from the Teethwatch Emergency Briefings (Famine Year 8)
During the long famine, teeth became currency. But mandibles? Mandibles became rationed.
The Prime Maxillarch declared that each household could keep one functioning jaw. The rest must be surrendered. Processed. Logged in the National Grind Registry. “No more than one mouthful per family,” he grinned — before biting his podium in half.
Jaw smuggling flourished. Hollowed books hid molars. Baby teeth were forged in sugarcane resin. An entire apartment complex was built from surplus incisors and political regret.
The resistance chewed in secret. Dinners conducted in full silence. Kissing became treasonous.
The famine ended not with relief, but with the sudden, simultaneous reappearance of every surrendered mandible. They arrived in mailboxes, alphabetized. Every home bit itself open.
The government denied the delivery. Teethwatch disbanded. Chewing resumed.
Moral:
- Control the mouth, and you control the memory.
- Some famines are engineered to silence, not starve.
- All mandibles return eventually. Some with hunger still intact.