Incomplete short story: Tina the Tooth (Patreon)

I wrote this spontaneously when I couldn't settle on an idea for a short story, and made it up as I went.

I already know where it would go if I continue it.

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Clackclackclack. Clackclackclackclack.

Owowow. Owowowowow.

Clack.

Ow.

Clacketyclackclack. Clack.

Ow, ow, owowow. Ouch.

The sounds rose to a steady, thrumming din in the labyrinth of gleaming, white cubicles. The sound of a thousand exposed nerves tapping against a thousand glistening white keys.

The sound of teeth crunching numbers.

Tina was one such tooth, her blocky, white body leaning back in an office chair that was also a tooth, albeit of a different shape and significantly less intelligence. Her two conical, barely flexible roots dangled inches off a mushy, pinkish floor that was not a tooth at all, unlike her tooth desk or her tooth cubicle walls or the tooth computer monitor she regarded with two circular, black holes in her enamel.

It was from these holes that Tina snaked her dextrous, branching nerve endings. They were her eyes, her ears, her hands and more, abuzz with the beautifully and terribly sharp pain every tooth accepted as the natural price one paid to feel the world around them. It was what separated people from things, after all; a chair had nerves, too. So did a desk, and a cubicle, and a computer monitor, but these nerves were locked forever in a dark tomb of pulp and enamel. Even freed from their prison artificially, the nerves of a mere thing hung limp and lifeless, exhibiting none of the complex consciousness of Tina's kind.

"EXCELLENT WORK AS USUAL, TINA!"

The soothing scream of her supervisor, Thomas, yanked Tina from her focused, mechanical daze of computation.

"THANK YOU, SIR!" Tina screamed back, vibrating her nerves in exquisite agony to produce the sound. "I SHOULD HAVE THE MID-CYCLE REPORTS ON YOUR DESK BY LUNCH!"

"ALREADY?! SLOW DOWN, KID!

OR NOT, HAHA! KEEP IT UP AND MAYBE THERE'S A PAIR OF GLOVES WITH YOUR NAME ON IT!"

Thomas winked as best as he could without severing his left nerve, which was too busy giving Tina the tooth equivalent of a "thumb's up" to retract completely into the dark orifice. Every branch of the appendage fit neatly into the fine, lubricated rubber glove Thomas had earned through years of hard work. 

Tina gave the tooth equivalent of a smile and a nod as she returned to her work, appreciative of the encouragement even if she had little interest in gloves of her own. She couldn't imagine giving up the invigorating sting of air exposure just to show off her status, faking every scream in some transparently empty gesture of common ground with the un-gloved.

"...HE'S...HE'S RIGHT, YOU KNOW....YOU'RE...REALLY ONE OF THE BEST."

The gentler screech was almost lost in the surrounding din, but Tina could never mistake the sound of Tabitha, from two cubicles down, a demure shriek she might have likened to a rusted fork squealing against a dinner plate, had she ever encountered such a thing. It melted the densely veined lump of pulp analagous to her heart.