You might be wondering where this story came from. Actually, it wasn’t found in some big bookstore or library, nor was it a gift from someone else. It was dug out of a trash bin filled with old paper.
Yes, you heard right—a trash bin.
On our street, there’s a grocery store. The owner’s son is a young man who loves reading. He usually helps out at the store, but whenever he has free time, he enjoys flipping through old wrapping paper—the kind used for coffee beans, salted fish, or soap. These papers often have printed text on them: sometimes ads, sometimes letters, and occasionally even important documents someone accidentally tossed away.He collected these papers like treasures.
One day, he came running to me, holding several sheets torn from old composition books. The writing on them was exceptionally beautiful, each stroke neat and precise. He said, “I rescued these from a pile of paper in the backyard of the deli. The person who wrote them was a college student who lived in the building across the street. He passed away last month.I heard he suffered terribly from toothaches before he died. The landlady sold his belongings to my parents for just half a bar of soap.“
I found this fascinating and borrowed the papers to read. Now I’m telling you this story—it’s called ”The Toothache Aunt.”
When I was little, she always gave me candy
When I was a child, I had an aunt—not my blood aunt, but a relative on my mother’s side. We kids all called her “Auntie,” no other name. She loved giving us candy, even though the adults always said sweets were bad for our teeth. She didn’t care. “Kids,” she’d say, “how can they be happy without candy? Seeing them smile melts my heart.”
So we kids adored her. Whenever she visited, we’d swarm around her, waiting for her to pull candy from her pocket. Her teeth were perfect—pearly white, not a single one decayed. She claimed she hardly ever ate sweets as a child, which was why her teeth were so strong.
She had a friend, an old man who made wine, named Lasmuseng. He ate too much candy when he was young, and by the time he was old, all his teeth had fallen out, leaving only a few blackened roots. He joked around, calling my aunt “Toothache Auntie”—though she never actually had toothaches. It was just because she always gave us candy and worried we’d get toothaches, so that’s how she got the nickname.
The old man had a sharp wit, though his remarks could be a bit cutting. But my aunt never got angry. “He’s just a smart aleck,” she’d say. “His heart’s in the right place.”
One morning, my aunt woke up and told us she’d dreamt the night before that she’d lost a tooth. “It means I’m going to lose a good friend,” she said.
Rasmuseng chuckled and replied, “But what if it was a false tooth? Then you’d only lose a ‘false friend’!”
This infuriated my aunt—it was the first and only time I ever saw her so angry. But a few days later, she laughed it off: “He just loves to joke around. He’s actually a really good person. When he passes away, he might become an angel and fly up to heaven.”
Those words stayed with me for a long time. I wondered: If he really became an angel, would I still recognize him?
Later, Lasmushen truly passed away. His funeral was grand, with many people dressed formally to pay their respects. My aunt stood with us children by the window watching, though our youngest brother didn’t go—he was just born and still in his cradle.
After the funeral procession faded into the distance, I remained rooted to the window. I waited, waiting for Lasmuseng to return as an angel. I even wondered if the next time the storks (the legendary birds who bring babies) delivered a new infant, they might bring back the angel Lasmuseng too?
When my aunt heard my words, her eyes lit up. “You, child,” she said, “you’ll be a great poet someday!”
From then on, she told everyone she met: “This child has the makings of a poet!”—she said it through elementary school, through middle school, and even when I went to university.
I Moved into a “Singing” House
Later, when I went to college, I moved into a new house. This house… how to put it? It wasn’t exactly quiet.
I described it to my aunt: “I live in a small room above the gatehouse. Every time a car drives in or out downstairs, the paintings on the walls shake, the door rattles, and the floor trembles like an earthquake.When the wind blew, the broken windowpanes would hum, and the neighbor’s doorbell would chime along with it. Upstairs lived a bassoon teacher who came home late at night, stomping around in his studded boots, thump-thump-thump, like drumming.“
”But the best part? They kept a pony in the basement, tied under the stairs. It kept bumping against the door whenever it moved.At dawn, the janitor clogs down the stairs, ‘clack clack,’ making the whole building shake. Upstairs, there’s a guy lifting dumbbells, and the iron balls keep clattering to the floor. Kids scream and jump in the hallway before school…”
“But,” I added, “the landlady was quite kind—she lent guests clean socks and pajamas. She patched the broken windows with paper, and the wind whistled through the cracks like a swarm of bees. Strangely, it was quite soothing.”
After hearing this, my aunt clapped her hands and exclaimed, “You’re a true poet! Your words paint pictures—they transport the listener right into the scene!You should write this down, add some characters, weave in a story—especially about those struggling to make ends meet. That way, you could become as famous as Dickens!“
Hearing this, I actually wrote about that ”noisy building.” At first, though, the piece only described the house and the sounds—no people, no story. Only later did the plot slowly take shape.
A Snowstorm Night: My Aunt Spends the Night at My Place
It was a winter evening. After the play ended, heavy snow fell outside, and the wind blew so fiercely it was hard to stand. My aunt had been at the theater, and I had to take her home. But there wasn’t a single carriage on the street, and the snow was so deep we could barely move.
Finally, I had no choice but to bring her back to where I lived—though my room was small and noisy, at least it offered shelter from the wind and snow.
We trudged back, sinking deep into the snow, our clothes covered in it. After entering, we beat our clothes vigorously, but the floor was still covered with snowy footprints.The landlady was kind-hearted. She brought clean socks and pajamas for my aunt to change into and let her sleep on the living room sofa—since my room was locked, she couldn’t get in.
I lit the stove and brewed tea. Though the little room was simple, it was warm. Outside, the wind howled, but inside, we chatted animatedly.
Auntie began recounting stories from her youth, telling of Lasmushen, of how thrilled the whole family was when my first tooth emerged as a child.
She said, “The first tooth, white as a little pearl, is called a ‘milk tooth.’ Then one after another, filling the mouth—those are childhood’s most adorable teeth. Later come the ‘wisdom teeth,’ emerging with pain, like life’s difficult problems.”
“And then?” I asked.
“Then, tooth by tooth, they fall out. Not because of age, but because they’re worn out. They haven’t finished their work, yet life has worn them down. When the last one falls, that’s when you truly grow old—even if your heart still feels young.”
Her words carried a touch of sadness, but we kept talking, chatting until the clock struck twelve, and she still hadn’t gone to bed.
“Sweetie, good night!” she said with a smile as she bid me farewell. “I’ll sleep on the couch—it’s just as comfy as my own bed!”
No sooner had she settled in than the wind outside grew fiercer. The window rattled loudly, and the upstairs tenant began snoring, the sound piercing through the floorboards. I tossed and turned, unable to sleep. The howling wind, the snoring, the doorbell—every sound seemed to crawl into my ears.
Then—my tooth started hurting.
Not just ordinary pain, but a piercing, burning agony. I rolled around on the bed, clutching my face, cold sweat pouring down.
Just then, I saw a figure slowly emerge on the floor, where moonlight and shadows intertwined.
Slim and elongated, like a child’s chalk sketch on a blackboard: one line for the body, two lines for arms, two lines for legs, and a head shaped like an irregular polygon.
But it grew clearer—a woman in a long dress.
She made a hissing sound, like a snake, or wind creeping through a window crack.
“I’m here,” she said. “I’m ‘Mrs. Toothache’—specializing in tooth pain. This place suits me well: damp, windy, mosquitoes… perfect for sharpening my ‘needles’—your teeth are my whetstone.”
I trembled with fear.
She said, “Great poets must have great toothaches; small poets must have small toothaches. Which do you want to be?”
I cried out, “I don’t want to be a poet! I don’t want to be anything! I just want my tooth to stop hurting! Please go away!”
She sneered coldly, “I can leave—but you must promise me never to write poetry again. Never write on paper, walls, or anywhere. The moment you write, I’ll return.”
I swore immediately, “I swear! I’ll never write again! Just go!”
She drew closer, her voice suddenly softening. “Actually… you’ll see me again someday. Then, I’ll become the familiar ‘Aunt Miller’ you know. I’ll smile and tell you, ‘Good child, write poetry! You’re the greatest poet!’—But remember, the moment you write poetry, I’ll compose music for it and play it for you on my harmonica… the music of toothache.”
With that, she vanished.
But just before she vanished, my cheek felt like it had been stabbed by a red-hot awl—the pain nearly made me cry out.
Then, as if I’d fallen into water, my body felt light and buoyant. Vast fields of white water lilies floated before my eyes as I slowly sank beneath the surface. A voice whispered in my ear: “Melt like snow… become a cloud and drift away…”
I fell asleep. This sleep held no dreams, no rustling wind, no snoring—nothing at all. It was bliss.
When I woke the next morning, my aunt asked, “Did you write poetry last night?”
Early the next morning, the wind blew open the door to my aunt’s room. She scrambled out of bed, dressed quickly, and rushed into mine. Seeing me sleeping so soundly, she couldn’t bear to wake me.
I opened my eyes, momentarily dazed—was last night a dream? Or real? That “Toothache Lady”… had she really come?
Auntie smiled warmly and asked, “Sweetheart, after we parted last night, did you write anything? You’re my poet, always and forever!”
I sat bolt upright and exclaimed, “I didn’t write anything! I wrote nothing at all! Are… are you really Auntie Miller?”
She laughed. “Who else would it be? Do you think any other aunt would come see you this early in the morning?”
She kissed me goodbye and rode home in her carriage.
I wrote down last night’s experience—not as poetry, but as I’m telling it now, in fragments. I know these words will likely never be printed in a book… Perhaps someday, wrapped with salted fish and soap, they’ll vanish into some corner of the world.
The author of this story—that college student—is no longer here. Neither is Aunt Miller. Rasmus had left even earlier. Their stories, their laughter, their toothaches—all ended up in paper piles, in trash bins, in the fabric of life.
This is the story of “Toothache Aunt.”
The Truth Behind the Story
On the surface, this tale is about an aunt who loves giving candy to children, a joking old man, and a college student plagued by toothaches. But in truth, it speaks to the “cost of creation.”
Toothache symbolizes suffering. Writing, creating, expressing—these are rarely lighthearted pursuits. They often come with inner torment, physical exhaustion, and even misunderstanding from others.That “toothache aunt” is actually the voice within the creator—the one that pushes, torments, and yet inspires them.
The aunt represents “those who encourage you”—she always says you’re a poet, even if you don’t see yourself that way. But her encouragement can sometimes feel like pressure. Because you know that once you start writing, you’ll have to face that “toothache aunt.”
The author swore “never to write again” because he couldn’t bear that agony. Yet ironically—he still wrote this story. What does this reveal? That he cannot deceive himself. The urge to create is more unbearable than toothache.
What truth does this story reveal?
True creation isn’t about seeking fame or others praising your talent. It’s because something stirs within you—and not writing it down feels worse than a toothache.
Toothaches pass, but words bottled up too long become a greater affliction.
Auntie’s candy is both love and temptation; Mrs. Toothache’s torment is both bitterness and fuel.Such is life—only when sweet and bitter are intertwined is it truly whole.
So if you carry a story within, if words yearn to be told, fear not the pain, fear not the ridicule—write them down. Even if they end up wrapped in salted fish and tossed in the trash—at least you wrote. At least you lived.
That is what truly matters.
