No mouse has ever seen a cathedral. No mouse will ever see a cathedral. Mice are not equipped to see cathedrals. Mice don’t believe in cathedrals, though they learn about them at school. The mice who live in cathedrals are particularly sceptical about cathedrals. If the cathedral were there, they’d know it. Cathedrals are things you do in boring lessons at school; they are made-up things for doing exams about. They aren’t real.
I once tried to help a mouse see the cathedral it lived in. I let it use the palm of my hand as a viewing platform and carried it a suitable distance from the cathedral. It should have had a very good view indeed. “What do you see?” I asked. “I see a hand,” said the mouse. “What else do you see?” I asked. “There is bright above, and less-bright on all sides,” responded the mouse.
I walked towards the cathedral and asked the mouse to tell me when there was any change. At one point it reported that the less-bright on one side was becoming less bright still. Then, a foot away from the wall, it said it could just make out textured grey. There was a lot of textured grey in the world, so it must be home. I said that was the wall of the cathedral. The mouse said it didn’t look anything like the cathedral I’d promised, there wasn’t a spire or buttresses or stained glass, just textured grey. It thanked me for the ride and went on its way. On its journey it had also failed to see the sky, trees, clouds, or any of those other things that sensible mice don’t concern themselves with.
Some mice are different. They are called investigators. Although they will never see the cathedral, investigators believe by painstaking experiment they will eventually be able to understand it, and form at least a partial picture of it in their minds. To the everyday mice, the cheesers, investigation is a rude word. The cheesers are highly suspicious of investigators and can’t see why they bother. They say that such things are of no concern to mice and that no good can come of poking your whiskers where they don’t belong.
Many, many generations ago the early investigators had little to go on but their imaginations and dreams. One famously stated that architecture had four elements: corners, holes, darkness and nests. Others wasted a great deal of time trying to transmute stones into cheese. But gradually their knowledge increased and the dreams were superseded by understanding.
Soon the investigators will begin a major exploratory journey. The cheesers are angry. “Why do we supply you with cheese and hamburger scraps?” they asked. “What have you ever done for us?” “We lead you to the communion wafers and showed how you could get beneath the lid of the font for a refreshing drink,” responded the investigators. “Oh, we’ve already got those,” scoffed the cheesers. “They are everyday things to us now. What else will we get?” “We don’t know,” admitted the investigators. “That’s the nature of investigation. You don’t know what’s out there until you’ve found it.”
One investigator mentioned that they might just find a world-eating Black Cat, although the chances were minuscule, and even if they did find it, it would be no bigger than a mouse’s squeak. The mousepapers howled. This proved just how irresponsible the investigators were. The whole mouse world was almost certain to be sucked into the maw of a world-eating Black Cat. “The chances are very slight,” protested the investigators. “No more than, say, finding a giraffe balanced on top of the spire. And it wouldn’t be a proper Black Cat…” But nobody was listening. Now the investigators had admitted that they were about to unleash a zoo of giraffes to fall on the unsuspecting mouse community. The cheesers were livid.
The investigation began and no Black Cat, no matter how tiny, was unleashed. No giraffes fell from the spire. The cheesers went back to sniffing and poking and forgot about the whole affair.
If I were a mouse, I would be a cheeser. I have never been very brave, and anyway, everybody knows that investigators can’t get girlfriends. And why should we be concerned about cathedrals, trees and sky? Does it help the cheese economy? Next they'll be saying there's some value in poetry. No, I’m entirely on the cheesers' side.
Comments
Margharita | October 14, 2008 - 23:32
And, after all the fuss, the Investigation is now on hold until next year. I suppose it will give the Cat time to get bigger and hungrier...
I enjoyed reading this. It made me chuckle. Thanks for posting it.
Stefano | October 14, 2008 - 23:50
Thanks for your comment, Margharita. I was either a month late or many months early with this one. Glad you like it!
artisus | October 21, 2008 - 17:36
Good story, almost a surreal microtale.
mykle | December 3, 2008 - 11:26
Very entertaining Stephano.
If I were a mouse I would try not to be a lab rat for cathedrals are simply dangerous mazes to the unwary rodent and his guinea pig pals!
Perhaps you should have taken the mouse to a cheese factory instead.
There are many decendants of the 3 blind mice who can only see through a glass darkly but their noses are their eyes and they inhabit an aromatic world whose slendour few monkeys could even dream of.
I suspect we would find it difficult to appreciate the exquisite world of aromavision since our noses are even less efffective than the eyes of the mouse.
However mice have their priorities right - they know what's important - having enough to eat and drink.
Monkeys on the other hand happily build cathedrals while millions of their kind starve.
They learn new and powerful prayers in their increasingly elaborate temples which they employ to (hopefully) improve the lot of monkeykind until unforseen consequence cause catastrophic side effects like global weather changes which threaten the water supplies and the banana crops.
The monkey elite - being reasonably pragmatic - plan to build more cathedrals (while even more people starve) in the hope of perfecting space flight so they can start afresh with a cathedral on Mars...
you've probably noticed that China and India have recently entered the space race - didn't you wonder WHY while the world is suffering an economic meltdown? :O)
No doubt Earth will turn out to have had the cleverest monkeys in the solar system before they became extinct!
mykle | December 3, 2008 - 13:31
Come visit our cathedral - I'm afraid that it's quite hot...
we built it to be cold as space but the cooling system's shot.
It may not inspire much confidence in our engineering skill.
But we've learned much more of quenches so it's not such a bitter pill.
We plan to look for god you know - well a particle or two...
but with the air conditioning on the blink we just admire the view.
All those sexy magnets and tranformers full of power
We can't wait until they're cold again... at last our greatest hour.
We'll smash and bash those particles to see how they react
Will our theories prove to be... science fiction or science fact?
If the worst should happen - at least we'll all be gone.
No-one left to point and say 'I said that you were wrong!'
Stefano | December 4, 2008 - 01:24
Bonkers nutty. I dare say you yourself know the flaws in your argument. Why do you own a computer, a TV, furniture, a car, anything at all while there are people in the world starving? Wouldn't a charity be a better use of your resources? What of art? What of politics? What of music? Or is it only things you don't like that we should forego until the world is fed?
mykle | December 4, 2008 - 16:04
U.N. food aid costlier as need soars...
The U.N.'s World Food Program is struggling as costs of food and fuel skyrocket while the numbers of people needing help surge across the globe.
Millions are in danger.
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-fg-food1apr01,1,501443...
Stefano | December 4, 2008 - 16:21
I dare say there are any number of people in a bad way. Always have been and probably always will be. But whose resources do we use to help them? Mine? Yours? Bill Gates's? The Tate Modern's? Bling Rapper's? Famous footballer's? Whose?
mykle | December 4, 2008 - 16:42
My simple suggestion was that we stop spending money (and scientific brain power) on rockets and atom smashers and super science and instead use these resources to try and get through the present crisis.
Won't the secrets of the universe wait a few years?
Actually, rereading my posts I don't think I made that clear but now I hope I have :O)
mykle | December 5, 2008 - 11:56
You know I often think that we never consider what life might be like for the poor mice who haven’t noticed the progress that the investigator mice have brought. As Stef says these poor mice can’t see cathedrals, can’t rejoice in the wonder that mice have walked on the moon or split the atom.
In Thailand you can see Thai mice living the traditional Thai mouse life - swimming in the dirty, polluted, rivers lined with dead rotting fish, spreading their nets to try and catch enough surviving fish to feed their families. They don’t have TV’s or cars, or computers or fridges - just a very short life expectancy ... they haven’t adapted to modern living and are paying the inevitable price.
Yet in other parts of Thailand where the industries which support the cathedrals have not yet blessed the land with their presence there still live Thai mice who dwell in the shadow of the trees which shade them from the hot sun, drinking fresh water from the mountain streams and living on the abundant food that nature supplies...It’s so sad that these poor creatures will never realise what they’re missing.
mykle | December 5, 2008 - 13:05
I’m bored and in something of a black mood -
stuck in waiting for the Gas man...
Some will say it’s about time I was gassed and perhaps this little poem will add to the list :O)
Can’t be bothered to finish it but maybe someone else might...
And so it was the mice began at last to see the truth...
While they still had to fight their foes with only claw and tooth
The 'investigators' had long, long, ago sold out to the cats.
For they weren't really mice at all - but mercenary rats.
The rats built bombs and missiles to control unruly mice.
While promising the mice that they were building paradise.
So now the Fat Cats have no fear for they need no longer fight
For their weapons make them Masters and light the darkest night
They have drones that can kill mystic mice with lightning from the sky
Guilty, innocent, all blown up - while friends and family cry...
And wonder if it’s their turn next to be wounded or to die.
While the Fat Cats just feign sorrow embroidered with a lie.
So what comes next as cheese gets scarce and mice begin to starve?
The Fat Cats will just eat extra mice until their numbers halve.
Sustainable the rats say - without using too much oil.
Should sort out Global Warming yet leave enough for toil.
For cats and rats will always need some mice to do the work.
And to boldly go out into space and see what dangers lurk...
mykle | December 5, 2008 - 18:04
An official investigation into the accident at the Large Hadron Collider has recommended that an early warning system be installed.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7766334.stm
The report also confirmed the damage would cost £14 million to repair and that experiments will not begin until next summer.
When experiments do eventually begin, they won't be carried out at full power. Instead, the LHC will be operated at two-thirds of its maximum capacity to gently run the machine in.
Will it get a 5 million mile service?
Stefano | December 6, 2008 - 17:00
When they make a Hollywood film about the LHC (set in the USA, of course, and staffed entirely by brave American scientists), £14 million will barely pay for Handsome Star's hairdresser.
Can't we forego Hollywood films until the world is set to rights? Please?
mykle | December 6, 2008 - 18:52
I think that's a great idea Stefano and I refer you to the No Country thread :O)
lenchenelf | July 23, 2009 - 08:33
Can't help but come back to this piece time and again, refreshing and delightfully funny, thanks atb Lena
rjnewlyn | November 24, 2010 - 23:48
Lena has just passed me on to this. A bit late for any words but just to say that I'm glad she did. Very good indeed.
Rob