The Mysterious Mr. Jones

The Mysterious Mr. Jones

"Can't say I've ever seen that before." He counted again tapping his double ended pigtail explorer tool along the row of teeth and asked his assistant to take x-rays. The dentist, Dr. Mark Huang, pronounced Wong, to his clients and customers but, on occasion, his wife would call him Dr. M. HU-ang, because she knew how much he disliked it. When she full-named him Mark knew he was in the doghouse. Mark stared again at the man's overly mouthful of teeth. The other thing that struck as odd was their size, they were about a third smaller than usual. Which would account for his rather normal sized jaw and not some hulking chimpanzee-sized jaw.

"Am I going to be okay, Doctor?" the patient asked in a lyrical accent Mark didn't recognize, and he’d heard a lot of different regional accents in his many years of being a dentist here in Chilliwack, BC, where he began his trade, although he was born in Singapore. Although he rather like living in Canada, rather inexpensive green fees compared to other parts of the world. Most days would find Mark on the golf course instead of staring at mouthfuls of rotted teeth and mentioning for the six thousandth time, "a simple two minutes of brushing a day and you wouldn't be here in this chair."

The man, rather simply named A. Jones, put him in mind of a Scandinavian or some such; very pale skin with white-blond hair, and a long lanky frame. But he had eyes that were almost Chinese, with slight epicanthic folds.

And the voice didn't match any of that. He wanted to pry but knew not to after all these years of dealing with the public.

"Oh, you'll be fine. This molar has been badly cracked, hence the intense pain you’re feeling, but after I fill it you'll be fine. But I can't say I've ever seen anyone with forty teeth. Even with full set of wisdom teeth, you should only have thirty-six. There is a condition known as Supernumerary and another called Hyperdontia that causes extra teeth to grow, but that is on the inside of the jaw, not behind the normal molars."

Mr. Jones furrowed his long white eyebrows, his eyes shifting back and forth as if he was thinking or searching for an answer. "I'm, ah, Norwegian. It is a rare genetic anomaly. I’m told fewer than a thousand people have it."

"Yeah, I guess that makes sense, up in the Arctic you'd need more teeth to chew on walrus, seals, and the occasional reindeer. Well, except at Christmas; the big guy in the sled needs them at that time of the year." Mark laughed, trying to inject some humor into the conversation with the dejected and rather sad-looking man.

He glared darkly at him. "Let's get this over with. I have to go home to take my meds in about an hour."

Obviously not the chatty, humorous, types these Scandinavians. Mind you, most Vikings weren't known for their over-developed sense of ha-ha. More for being the rape-and-pillage kind. Yup, let's get him out of here as quickly as possible. Mark checked his patient over. No sword; this is a good thing. Probably a bit more civilized these days than his ancestor Eric the Red. He laughed at himself.

The rest of the day went by rather quietly. Three fillings, one referral to a gum specialist, and an elder that hadn't brushed his teeth since the Beatles were together. Several cavities that needed attention there. That one he gave to Mandy his hygienist, to clean up first. Yup, it's good being the boss some days. But he remembered the days when he was in training and getting the awful jobs. Glad those are behind me and all I need worry about now is my golf handicap. So why do I feel so bored?

After everyone left he sent an email to one of the mentors, Dr. Jason Born who had guided him and often helped when he had a difficult case, asking his opinion on this anomaly.

Two days later he received a reply from Dr. Born. "Nope, never heard of any such case. I searched the bona fide journals, even Googled it. Unheard of. Did you by any chance take x-rays?"

"Matter of fact I did. I’ll send them to you."

Odd, Mark thought, either I've a one-in-a-million human or an alien. He went on with his work for the rest of the day, putting the rather strange case as far as possible into the back of his mind.

Jason called him the next day "Are you setting me up with a practical joke, like last year?"

Mark and Jason would often play pranks on each other. Jason had never forgotten the time Mark had broken into his office at college, picking the locked door, and making off with the eighteen-year-old bottle of Glenfiddich he had stashed away. For a while they had traded pranks but now they usually only duked it out on the golf course.

"No, this is for real."

"Oh, and I'm to believe this? Did you look very closely at those x-rays? Forty I might believe, but not forty-four. Nice try, sonny boy." He hung up the phone.

"What?" Mark went over to the man's files and looked at the scans again. He counted. "I don’t see." But something caught his eye. He hit ‘exploded view’ again and again until all he could see was the last molar. And there, just beside it, he saw the small outline of another molar. Faint, but there. He went to the three other fourth Molars. All showed signs of another tooth beginning to grow in. "Well I'll be damned! Must be quite the smart man with that many wisdom teeth."

He asked his secretary to make a follow-up call and see if he could get Mr. Jones back in his chair, no charge. He had a lot of questions that needed answering.

After an hour of trying to get through all she got, every time, was voicemail. "Can I see his file?"

Mark glanced at his file and caught the street address. It wasn't far from his place. Think I'll take Slinky for a walk up that way tonight and see if he wants to chat further. Slinky was his six-year-old Dachshund that he took on many a walk after work.

Mark rang the doorbell to the Jones’ residence for the fifth time. Only the porch light was on overhead, the rest of the house was dark. He quietly wandered along the sidewalk to the side and caught a figure moving in the light in the garage. I guess he's working on his car, motorcycle, or new dragon boat. He smirked. Well no signs of a guard dog nor a keep the bleeding eff off my property.

Mark walked up to the garage, but before he could pound on the side door he caught sight of some kind of bizarre metallic contraption he'd never seen the likes of. Wild! Yup, looks like a dragon boat. But a dragon boat from Mars. He knocked on the door; the lights went out. "Mr. Jones, are you in there? Can I chat a moment with you?" He tried the door but it was locked and, as he let go of the handle, the sounds of a large dog echoed from within.

I think time to beat a hasty retreat. He picked up Slinky before she became Rover The Attack Dog's next meal and sprinted down the sidewalk. Once on the street he glanced back and caught the rather pale face of Mr. Jones in the frame of the garage window, glaring at him.

Not the warm, come-on-over-for-a-spot-of-tea, type then.

His secretary tried for the next two days to get hold of him, but always the same response; only voicemail. Mark walked by the house three days later. All dark except for the newly-placed, large red sign, with the picture of a rabid Doberman on it, exclaiming 'Guard Dog On Duty. Keep Out’.

Yes, not the chatty invite-you-over-for-a-bridge-game-and- beer dude. Mark left it for a few days. But after again digging into the possibility of someone having eight more teeth than normal and drawing more and more blanks, he decided to go over one more time. Mark waited until it was quite late before taking Slinky for her evening constitutional walk.

But instead of walking in the front Mark strolled down the back alley. On his first visit, he'd spotted a cement pad behind the garage. Although how he got a car into the garage with that large weird metal thing in there I'll never know.

Mark stopped behind the garage, there was no one around at this time of night. All the lights were out in the house out and in the garage as well. There was no sign in the backyard as he walked quietly up the drive. I've got to see what that crazy looking contraption is. Because he ain’t no Norwegian. Not with that accent and the eye folds. He'd researched dialects, and if any Scandinavians had epicanthic eye-folds, and drew a blank. Mark loved murder-mysteries. He would quite often call out the name of the killer before Poirot is on his reveal-all scene. Sometimes he knew “whodunnit” after the first twenty minutes. It drove his wife crazy. “You’re always right. Now there’s no point watching”. He had always had a fantasy to be dentist-turned-detective. He’d always liked the sound of “Dr. Mark Wong, D.D.S, P.I.”.

The odd thing was that there was no fence around the yard. Which meant one of two things; either the dog was never allowed outside, or there was no dog.

Mark pulled a dog whistle out of his pocket and blew into it. Nothing.

He'd also brought a small steak, just in case he needed to distract the guard dog, if there was one, and he was wrong, but he was rarely wrong. If his second hunch turned out to be correct it would be Slinky’s reward for being out this late. I think it’s a recording of a dog barking. He’d found a number of such security devices sold on Amazon. He bent over, took a small piece of the steak he'd cut ahead of time, and fed it to Slinky, before sliding another piece under the side garage door and tapping on it. Again nothing.

Mark carefully tried the doorknob. The door was locked. He tapped twice, ready to do a runner as soon as the dog began barking. Only no dog. He gambled and tapped louder. Silence.

Okay, captain, I’m going in, because my money‘s on the fact that he's not Norwegian, nor does he own a real dog. His wife had told him that his curiosity would get the better part of him one day. I’d better live up to my reputation then. Besides, life, other than golfing, was the same old thing boring thing. Researching this man is the most exciting thing I've done in years. He thought of the corkboard on his office wall, the large pictures of the famous golf courses he'd swung a club at. St. Andrews, the old course, in Scotland, considered the home of golf, and Gleneagles, on the same trip. Also Augusta, where the most sought-after prize in golf was presented; the Green Jacket. Besides those he kept a picture of Mt. Kilimanjaro. Ever since he could remember he wanted to stand on its peak and yell 'FORE!', swatting golf balls into the jungle. One day, he thought, it's at the top of my bucket list.

Mark pulled a leather pouch from his pocket and looked over Margin trimmer, the Ex-probe and the various Endodontic hand files he'd brought along. He grabbed one and began to pick away at the lock. What says he's also got a bottle of Glenfiddich hidden in there? Don't let me down now, boys.

In about ten seconds Mark heard the audible click of the door unlocking. I've still got the old knack. Jason would be proud of me.

He’d had the foresight to bring a flashlight that strapped around his forehead, a must-have for detectives, and, clicking it on, he opened the door. As Mark stepped in holding Slinky, a slight, but shrill, alarm sounded. A flash like a thousand light bulbs surged all around him and Mark closed his eyes to protect his retinas from the sudden brightness.

Stunned, Mark fell to his knees onto damp grassy earth. Slinky tumbled from his arms and he clutched at wet grass. "What?"

He opened his eyes. Green grass stared back. Sunlight, the hot kind like in the tropics, beamed down on him. "What the?"

Mark looked up and stared into the face of what, for all intents and purposes, appeared to be living and breathing Stegosaurus chomping on the lush grass. This I wasn't expecting. He looked around, blinking several times to get the spots out of his eyes from being nearly blinded. There were a dozen or more of the Precambrian beasts milling about. Their clubbed-shaped tails swinging to-and-fro in rhythm with their chewing. Like cows on their cud. What the hell? I've just been teleported or time warped? Okay. So Mr. A. Jones isn't a Norwegian, then, he is an alien and, and…man am I screwed. He could hear his wife already yelling, "you went to two-hundred-million BC without me? Serves you right for being a curiosity hound."

A screech rent the air above him. I'm standing in a pack of Stegosaurs and there's Pterodactyls flying overhead. Not what I expected to find in the next-door neighbors’ garage. A fifty-six T-bird yes, Pterodactyls, no. He seemed to be on a knoll of a plain. Mark glared all around him and for as far as he could see. No houses, cars, nor anything remotely manmade could be seen. Only herds of various herbivore dinosaurs.

The stench of rotting meat assailed his nostrils. He caught Slinky tearing into the massive pile of dead something just below the rise. He barked at a Stegosaur as it sniffed at him and returned to tearing meat from the corpse. No, not a wise thing to do Slinky. One swing of those clubs and you're mashed meat. The stegosaurs ambled away from him. A twenty ton stegosaur could do nothing but amble, with its stumpy legs, but it ambled as quickly as it could, fear in its eyes. I guess they’ve never heard a dog barking. He thought a moment, his mind working overtime. The first mammals mostly won't be around for another ten zillion years. He walked over and grabbed the leash, hauling the dog in, nearly gagging on the stench. Mark tried to pull the meat from between Slinky's teeth. The dog growled and swallowed quickly. Who'd have thought dachshunds would love dinosaur? “I just hope you're not allergic to a million year-old dogfood." He stared closer at the large carcass. Overhead the Pterodactyls cried out, circling closer now that the herbivores had eased away from the rotting meat.

Only this wasn't a stegosaur. Mark walked to the other end of the remains, noticing the two small front appendages. The head badly smashed, one eye missing, of what looked like a carnivore. Either a junior Tyrannosaurus Rex, or a close cousin like an Allosaurus, or one of those Raptor things from the Jurassic Park movies, he surmised. Its jaw had been broken, several teeth, some shattered, lay strewn. Mark picked up one of the more intact teeth, an incisor nearly two inches in length, the edges razor sharp. I'm thinking he got whacked by trying to make lunch out of one of these Stegosaurs nearby. Just down the hill he spotted another corpse. He could see long jagged tears in its side, but the club on the tail told the rest of the story. Yup, they both lost. Overhead more cries as a light from behind caught his attention. The flying dinosaurs wouldn't hold off much longer before they had their lunch, but hopefully not him or his dog. He put the tooth in his pocket as the mysterious Mr. Jones came into view. I was hoping whatever the device was he had rigged up in his garage would notify him and send him my way long before either of us became lunch. Yes, trying to explain that one to the wife wouldn't be easy.

"What are you doing trespassing in my garage?" Mr. Jones yelled, as one of the Pterodactyls began to circle down. In his hands, a rather sinister-looking firearm the likes of which Mark had never seen before. Mr. Jones aimed skyward and a blue laser tore apart the lowest diving dinosaur. Blood splattered the ground as the others lifted higher, deciding to keep away for the moment.

"What was that you have installed in the garage? It sure isn't anything from Home Depot."

"That device, you so aptly call it, is a Tyrolian Security Lock."

"If I didn't know it before, I do now. You aren't from this world, nor is that laser gun."

He aimed it at Mark and the dog.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you. I’ve left detailed instructions regarding my whereabouts tonight in case I don’t return," he lied quickly.

"You are a smart man." He lowered his device. "That just saved your life. Now we must go, as the Pterodactyls can only be held off for so long. The smell of decomposing meat drives them mad in this heat. But it isn't them that worry me."

The shrill screech of a raptor tore the air. Mark looked back and caught several of the same type of carnivore as the one dead before him racing toward them. The Stegosaurs responded by thumping their tails on the ground and formed a tight circle, with the smallest in the centre. So like the videos he'd seen of Musk Ox in the arctic. The raptors approached at an astonishing speed. Drool slavered their jaws.

"They can smell rotting meat from miles away," Mr. Jones said again, as he touched Mark on the shoulder and, pressing a button on some kind of remote control, they quickly vanished from pre-historic Earth back into the confines of his garage.

Mark let out a deep breath, just realizing how humid and hot it had been seconds ago. "That's some kind of security system you've got, so Norwegian you are not." He let the squirming dog down. "Nor, I suspect, even human."

The man stared at him, sizing up what to do or say. Slinky ran up to him and nuzzled the alien named Mr. A. Jones.

"Well I'll be! He likes you. Dachshunds don't like many people, very protective."

The man looked at Mark in disbelief and bent down to pet the dog, who licked at his hand. "The first being that has befriended me on this world. He reminds me so much of our driggels back home. I had one, probably dead now, we used to go around the neighbourhood and chase kristials for a laugh." He sighed deeply. "Home."

Mark looked at him blankly. After being thrown into the very distant past, seeing raptors, pterodactyls and staring into the face of a stegosaurus, there wasn't much that could now surprise him. "Where are you from?"

A tear streamed from the being’s eyes as he scratched Slinky's ear. The dog rolled on its side and let him scratch at her belly.

"She's very trusting of you. Either that or she's hoping for more dino treats." Mark laughed.

Jones didn't laugh nor smile. A great sadness seemed to emanate from the being. "We are a very affectionate race, and I haven't touched nor hugged anything in the twelve years I've been stuck here. All alone." Tears streamed again down his pale cheeks.

Mark thought a moment. "Would you like to join her and me on our nightly walks?"

He broke into a sob. "I would. Very much. That is the kindest thing anyone on this world has ever said to me."

"So, not the rape-and-pillage type, like you tried to portray by being a Viking."

He smiled and laughed. "No, more like the come-over-here-and-let-me-give-you-a-big-hug type."

"Yeah, doesn't fit the alien-invader-wishing-to-wipeout-all-humanity movie stereotype."

They both laughed.

He went over to the wall switch and turned the light on. Scattered over the bench and most of the floor were bits and pieces of some kind of device.

"Your ship, or parts of it, I presume." Mark gasped at the parts littered everywhere. He knew they were not from a fifty-six T-Bird.

"Yes. You are very observant, and I knew I should have gone to a more normal, shall I say geekier, dentist, after I sat in your chair. It never dawned on me that we would have more teeth than Earthlings."

"I didn't get my degree for not knowing how many teeth a human should be have.”

Mr. Jones stared at Mark quietly as he bent down to scratch Slinky's stomach some more. The dog licked at his hand. More tears streamed down his face. "You must keep this in strict confidence. If I am found out, the authorities will come after me. I just last week managed to send a signal to my home-world of Teradorn. It is the third world circling the star you call Alcyone of the Taurus Constellation."

He stood up. "We are known to your kind as Pliedians. But it will take nearly five of your years for my signal to reach Teradorn. I have resources and funding to live comfortably. They will come to rescue me. But I cannot be found out. I have heard of others of our kind being imprisoned and ruthlessly tested on by your government. I would die first."

Others? Mark thought a moment. "You are safe with me. But I get that you could use a friend, so we could go for walks together, chat and, who knows, grab a beer or even play a round of golf.

"Golf? That annoying game I've watched on your television? Where the object seems to be to lose a little white ball down a hole?"

Mark laughed at the analogy. "Annoying yes, but it teaches patience and is good exercise. Also known as ‘a good walk spoiled’.”

"That would be acceptable."

In the next five years, Mark and Alphonivona Jones - it was his real name, well at least the first one was - shared much of each other’s lives. One day after Mark found out that Mr. Jones' people were finally coming for him he told of his bucket list want. “I have a vision in my head of yelling FORE! from the top of Mt. Kilomanjaro, driving those little white balls into the jungle below. Yes, my wife calls me crazy for it, but I want to do something no golfer has ever done ever before.'"

The no-longer-mysterious Mr. Jones replied with, "So you want to go golfing where no golfer has ever gone golfing before. I have an idea."

From a grassy knoll under the sweltering heat in 200,000,000 BC both pulled their clubs out, placed their balls on the tees and yelled FORE! Much to the chagrin of the herd of Stegosaurs before them.

Epilogue

Mark walked into the museum months after Alphonivona left. That had been a very tearful day for both of them and Slinky was sad and forlorn for a long while after. Slinky had grown rather fond of the Mysterious Mr. Jones.

He held the tooth he had retrieved from the grassy knoll and walked around the raptors on display, not sure which one it would belong to. A man walked up to Mark; his tag read “Curator”. "May I help you?"

Mark squinted at his tooth and at the dinosaur before him. "A friend gifted this to me," he lied. "He knows I'm an avid dinosaur buff but didn't know which one it came from and, being a dentist, I was most curious as to deduce which one it would have belonged to."

"I think that is most likely a T-rex incisor, although I would suspect an immature one, judging by the size. Adult teeth are typically six inches or so in length," he replied. "May I see that a moment?" He squinted at the tooth, turning it this way and that. "Yes, the striations match more closely to a type of Tyrannosaurus Rex than a Velociraptor, which would have more jagged markings, made as they tear into their prey. Only…" He hesitated and squinted closer with a small magnifying lens. "…yours is not fossilised and still has bits of meat attached to it."