If Vampires Were Real
If vampires were real, they would rely on dentists. A vampire with blunt canines is as good as dead, and eternity is a long time to keep your teeth. When they create new vampires (and there can't be too many) they need to make sure that some are dentists. Given dentists are more likely to be vampires then any other trade, they begin to dominate. Be careful of dentists who don’t have mirrors on their walls.
Background
This was published by the Paragraph Planet website in July 2020. That site has published a daily 75-word story since November 2008, and there are over 4000 stories in the archives.
This piece is frivolous rather than serious, but I like the way it builds a series of logical propositions, then turns it back into the real world in the last line.
Another short mail this week - due to pressures of work, the list is living up to the microfictions title. But I’m working on a few pieces that are more serious, and have finished a draft of this year’s horror advent calendar.
I’ve also skipped the recommendations recently. Things either need some time to prepare1 or have not quite been great enough to recommend2. But I started reading Lally MacBeth’s The Lost Folk at the weekend, and I’ll be raving about that in a week or two.
Coda
While looking for a link about ‘hate-reading’, I saw this article in a sidebar: This Family Ran a Fake Dental Clinic for Two Years Using Online Tutorial Videos.
Their patients—dozens of them—got extractions, root canals, and fillings. All are completely unlicensed. All completely real.
Every detail of this story is perfect. The journalist can’t find any indication that patients complained about the work.
Fake dentist cases aren’t exactly rare in the Czech Republic. Roman Šmucler, head of the country’s national dental chamber, says he gets around 10 reports a year. “I have two more submissions today,” he told local outlet Radiožurnál.
Such as Bryony Good’s new zine, In a Land, which features a story by me. You can buy copies from her website.
28 Years Later was very OK, and Cronenburg’s The Shrouds drowned its brilliance in misogyny. I re-read Doomsday Clock recently but that was very much a hate-read.
You got me James I never thought about hate reading before. Tell you what I belive I ordered and recieved your book but then due to work on the house it got lost, either that or I dreamed I ordered and received it, I am so certain it is in the house somewhere. Vampire dentists! Just imagining teeth which grow longer with blood lust is fun.