Based on all the accumulated evidence, we have to assume one of these theories is correct.
1. The Small Hand Theory
Small Hand Theory contends that the middle of the neck is dominated by a slender, long-fingered hand. This small, mottled hand not only pulls chewed food down from the mouth into the stomach, but also periodically splays to maintain the distribution of protective oils along the neck’s inner velvet lining. After all, as Small Hand theorists are quick to point out, the neck would otherwise be quickly shredded by the variety of textured foods that would fall through it undirected. Under Small Hand Theory, the neck’s tooth sits on the left side, most of the way down.
2. Kiely’s Hole
One of the most elegant theories of the inner neck, Kiely’s Hole, as laid out in Rachael Kiely’s groundbreaking Anatomy Of The Parts, suggests that the neck is just one big hole, and therefore looks, from the inside, like any other big hole: deep, dark, and open at the bottom. While some found the idea of a big hole in the neck unsettling when the work was first published, the theory’s appealing simplicity has kept it in contention to the present. Here, the neck’s tooth would obviously be at the bottom of the hole.
3. The Two-Tube System
Based on the tube-like shape of the neck, some of the earliest theories as to what the inside of a neck looks like posited a single corrugated plastic tube, easily hosed down by glands. These theories, though since discredited, recently gave rise to the Two-Tube System, which maintains the plastic tube while additionally suggesting the presence of a second tube: a slender tube of off-white paper stretched over a bamboo frame, similar to a Japanese lantern.
The tubes serve separate roles: The durable forward plastic tube deals with the bulk of neck activity—swallowing, vomiting, words, and phrases—leaving the paper tube free to deal solely with choking on large obstructions. The neck’s tooth would therefore be wedged between the two tubes, creating the sort of H shape found time and again throughout biology.
4. Froth Theory
According to Froth Theory, the bulk of the inside of the neck is a roiling black froth of spit, calcium, and old blood, constantly whipped up by the bone gears that stud the inner leather lining of the neck. The neck’s tooth is free-floating, allowing it to experience a variety of tastes and flavors as it bumps around the current contents of the neck. Though reasonable on its face, Froth Theory tends to divide its adherents between whether the drain at the bottom of the neck is a fine mesh, like a sieve, or full of small holes, like a colander.
5. Lasker’s Conjecture
More radical but no less plausible, Lasker’s Conjecture suggests that the inside of the neck might most resemble a refined hotel hallway, with plush carpeting, restrained artwork, and soft-bulbed lamps on demilune end tables creating a space of unostentatious luxury. According to Lasker’s Conjecture, the neck’s tooth would be the centerpiece of a tasteful chandelier that provides both gentle illumination and an aesthetic accent to the passageway of the neck. The hallway, of course, leads to the lungs and stomach, housed in the lower neck’s multifunction room.
