Novel Extract

Mattie said his father used this technique to yank loose teeth out of his mouth when he was a child. Mattie would sit on the bed some two meters from the door, to which the rope was tied, and his father would count three and then slam the door, ripping what felt like a whole wad of flesh out of his mouth – for, indeed, sometimes the tooth wasn’t properly loose or Mattie would wince before the door was slammed and so turned his head, aligning other teeth with the one about to be yanked out, and the loose tooth would plow through several neighboring teeth on its trajectory to the door pane, which (i.e. the door pane) had suddenly created this immense gravity that only had a hold on the one loose little tooth, which now came flying like a bat out of hell out of his mouth, and though small, was empowered with all this gravity that dragged, sometimes, some of Mattie’s other teeth out with it, and the whole event would be tantamount to some bloody, chunky supernova and often there’d be blood spatter on the door and door pane and wall as well, and Mattie’s mother and little sister would swoon before the door’s hollow echo down the hall had even died down.