People passed on, and when they died their respective facial components perished with them. As part of the ritual attendant on the birth of a new child, that infant’s face was ceremonially expunged and evacuated to the repository, there to join hundreds of similar floating bits. Each year a festival was held to commemorate the original gathering of the emancipated faces, with the celebration terminating at the repository in the presence of much good food and drink. For the islanders were still able to eat, passing sustenance through narrow, inexpressive slits in the lower portions of their faces where lips and teeth had once reposed.
Similarly, they could hear through tiny dots in the sides of their heads, and smell through dots in the center, and see, after a fashion, through dots situated higher up. The arrangement was too minimal to be called a face, and each was utterly identical to that of its neighbor. These openings only manifested themselves when they were required. When a person did not need to smell, for example, no dots were present in the center of his or her head.
Occasionally, visitors arrived in boats that pulled up on the shores of the Tilos. They were immediately taken in hand lest they disturb the delicate faceless balance that made life in the islands so agreeable. Their faces were removed and placed in the repository with all the others. After an initial period of anguish and despair (but no screaming, in the absence of mouths), these unwilling immigrants slowly adapted to their new lives, blending in successfully with the original islanders and adding vigor and energy to what otherwise might have become a decadent and inbred stock. Because of this, the Tiloeans actually looked forward to the rare visitations from representatives of the outside world.