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Description
It was made of the very finest ivory, polished to a mirror shine, white as bleached bone - a beautiful carving of an elephant, which almost seemed to glow in the dank darkness of its environment.

It stood on a tiny hardwood table in the centre of the room. Objects had been arranged with unnatural neatness around it, forming concentric circles that spread across the floor. Here a circle of scissors, each one closed and aimed exactly towards the statue; there a circle of pens, each one disembowelled to relinquish its refill and pointed precisely at the statue. There were exactly forty such circles - a good number, a safe number - each formed using only one type of object whose brand-name consisted of eight letters.

In the gloom of the living-area, the arrangement seemed almost ritualistic - an altar in propitiation of the deity whose likeness stood on the little wooden table.

The man stood in a corner of the room, the only free space uncovered by the circles. He was on the brink of exhaustion; his eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot, his face unshaven and gaunt, his skin pale and clammy. His eyes flicked over each circle, feverishly checking the number of items in each ring, the number of letters in each brand-name, the total number of items.

He counted forty circles - a good number - eighty tines in the circle made of forks - a better number - and two hundred and twenty-two watches in the tenth circle - an excellent number. He sighed with relief, leaned against the wall, and inadvertently shifted his left foot an inch to the right; it touched the edge of a watch, turning it a few degrees away from the statue.

The man let out a scream, as though he had been scorched, and hurriedly moved the watch back to its original position. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I won't do it again, please don't be angry," he begged, voice trembling with fear. He straightened up, slowly, and counted to sixty-four before looking at the statue.

The carving's eyeless gaze would have been lost on any other observer, but the man knew better, oh yes I do. It was indeed angry, but it had been pacified by the man's obeisance. The man sagged back against the wall, weak with relief.

Outside, someone hammered on the door, demanding loudly and authoritatively for the man to open up, this is the police.

The man had first found the carving in a curio shop. Before then, he had not been a great fan of antiques - he believed that old things were the exclusive domain of the old - but the polished sheen of the elephant, the blank yet somehow knowing gaze of the idol, had fascinated him in some strange but intense way. He had purchased the statue at an unusually low price for something that seemed so valuable.

He still remembered what the shopkeeper, a age-worn Chinese woman, had said to him, handing the idol in a red box over the counter to him: "If you are smart, young man, you will leave it in the box," she had croaked, in a voice which sounded like the death rattle of a crow. "Red is lucky - it will keep the er mo caged. It will protect you from the gui's greed."

Looking back, he supposed it had started in the car, when his curiosity had compelled him to open it again. He had taken it out, placed it on the seat next to him. Somehow, it had become even more beautiful, now that it was his; it seemed to radiate happiness and contentment in a gentle white glow. He had been unable to take his eyes off it, and so had not seen the car in front of him - the resulting court case had cost him three thousand dollars and no small amount of humiliation.

That was the first thing that the white elephant had taken from him. The first of many.

He had placed it on a shelf when he had arrived home. Only it seemed lonely, its glow dimming to a dull sheen, so before long he placed two paperweights on either side. But then it seemed wrong, for one paperweight was green and the other a brilliant orange, so he had rushed out, that very same day, and purchased another paperweight exactly like it. He had replaced the orange paperweight with the second green one, and had felt the difference immediately - the idol seemed delighted, and its silvered radiance had been almost tangible. He had gone to bed, utterly satisfied.

That had been on Tuesday. On Friday, the man had been horrified to see that the pearly luminosity of the idol had faded, diminished to a faint iridescence. The carving was unhappy, so unhappy, and its sadness was like a cold wind blowing over his soul. He had hastily found four spoons, and arranged them, handles facing inward, in a circle around the idol, and just like that the world seemed a kinder and warmer place as the statue shone once more.

He had been late for work, of course, earning him his manager's ire, but who cared? The idol was happy, and so he was happy, and the world was bright and joyful.

Over the next few weeks, the idol had wanted things more and more frequently. It was nothing very costly, at first - toothpicks, ballpoint pens, empty bottles, twigs - but the repeated effort of going out before and after work to fetch the items had first gotten him several scoldings, then a pay cut. Before long, the elephant had wanted watches, necklaces, rings - he had been forced to use his rent money to purchase these.

He'd have nothing with which to pay the rent, but what did it matter anyway? The landlord was a forgiving person, and he could just take it from his savings. The elephant's happiness was everything. It was worth it.

Soon, however, his savings were all but depleted, as he bought jewelry almost daily to satisfy the idol's needs. He had lost his job, and the landlord was getting increasingly agitated, having received nothing but empty promises for several months. He was forced to pawn his possessions for money, trading in his television and computer for cash with which he bought his offerings to the god which stood in his living room.

It didn't matter anyway, his house needed clearing out. The loss of his PC hurt him, but what good was a laptop when one had no job for which to use it? As long as the carving is happy, I'm the richest man in the world, he told himself, basking in the idol's contented luminescence.

It was then that he discovered another facet to the elephant's personality.

By then the objects which he had offered to the elephant took up half of his living room, concentric circles radiating across the floor. He had been going to the door, one day, and his foot had knocked a mobile phone - the elephant's latest craving - across the tiles. Instantly, something hot and burning had scalded the man's soul, filling his mind with an agony far worse than any physical pain. He had screamed, and fallen to the floor, scrabbling for the mobile; only when he replaced it did the pain stop. He looked up at the idol on its plinth...

The statue's eyes were blank, but it was a searing blankness - the emptiness of a mind that seethed with rage, unadulterated with thought. The man had fallen to his knees, begging it for forgiveness and mercy; gradually, the idol's anger had subsided to a slow burn, allowing him to get to his feet.

That night, he had given the idol diamond necklaces, purchased with the last of his savings and a considerable amount of borrowed money, and the idol had been content.

Things had spiralled rapidly out of control, from there: he had been forced to steal in order to fund his purchases. His creditors had harassed him almost nightly to repay his debts; his landlord threatened several times to call the police; the electricity and water had been cut owing to his refusal to pay his bills. He hardly slept at all, searching night and day for something, anything, that would make the idol happy.

Then, one night, the landlord barged into his living room. He took one step too many in the wrong direction, and tripped over a ring of clocks; he fell to the floor, hitting his forehead with an awful cracking sound, and lay still. The man was terrified - the idol is angry! - and shoved his landlord's corpse aside, replacing the objects he had disturbed.

But still the elephant was displeased. The man whirled around, looking hastily for something to give as an offering...

...and his eyes settled on the body of his erstwhile landlord.

Quickly, he turned the man over. With his bare hands (he had no tools in his house to assist him), he plucked out teeth from the still-living but blessedly unconscious body of his landlord, placing each one in a neat, bloody circle around the elephant. When the circle was finished, he looked up, and almost cried with relief: the idol's glow was bright and happy, and all was well.

The man had now found a solution, or so it seemed, to all his problems. The idol loved teeth, and was satisfied with them for a longer time than anything else. The man stole himself a pair of pliers, and began to stalk the streets at night, accosting unexpecting pedestrians and stealing their smile for the rest of their days.

It wasn't long before the neighbours became suspicious. They called the police; it was they who now hammered on the man's front door, demanding to be let in.

He didn't hear them. He didn't hear anything but the whisper of the elephant's silken voice in his head, asking, pleading for more. There are only twenty-nine teeth in the outermost ring, he thought. Twenty-nine is a powerful odd number, and a prime. The idol will be angry.

There were three hundred and ninety-seven teeth on the floor, and it wasn't enough. The man knew that there was only one more place from which he could get three more teeth.

Slowly, he reached up to his own mouth, and gripped what his fingers encountered. Something was screaming in the back of his mind, but it didn't matter. He'd listen to it afterwards, when the idol was happy once again. When the idol was happy, everything would be all right.

He jerked his hand sharply forwards. A bright, metallic explosion went off in his mind, but he didn't care - he tore three teeth out of his head, trailing shreds of gum, and offered them to the idol.

The idol glowed with delight, and it almost seemed to smile.