The Laboratory

Translated from the Persian original.

A laboratory is a place that has no creator (God); it has a boss.

The boss is the one who profits from founding the laboratory.

Mice are bred in the laboratory.

The boss is out to learn secrets about the mice.

The boss looks after the mice and provides the conditions for their life.

The boss needs the mice in return.

The boss wants to know what fraction of the mice resist a virus that has been introduced into them.

The boss's view of the mice is statistical and instrumental.

In the laboratory the mice know one another's names; the boss knows their number.

Some mice think they are the core of the world around them, and that there is a personal purpose behind their birth.

This group thinks the boss has a special favour for them and has a particular mission in mind for them; they feel a special responsibility towards the other mice, prefer to trust the boss completely, and urge the others to do the same.

The boss knows nothing of this and has never even seen the mice.

He only reads the doctor's reports on how the mice react to the virus.

Some mice take advantage of the security the boss has provided and make a comfortable life for themselves.

Some mice, by chance or out of curiosity, have guesses about the boss's motives, which has made them lose their trust in the laboratory; and the urge to disrupt the experiments is, of course, their reaction to this awareness.

This group is a minority, smaller even than the margin of error allowed for the experiment.

As the virus advances in the mice's bodies, illness and death begin in the laboratory.

The first group immediately feels the need for security of the kind they believe in, and begins producing hopeful abstract ideas of the same (abstract) kind of bond.

The second group splits into 3: some join the first group, some join the third, and some form a new group that sets out to change and fight the poisoned food and the order of the laboratory.

The third group sees a chance to cause disruption and takes over the leadership of the new group.

Now the unrest-seeking mice are no fewer than their security-seeking kin; they eat less to stay healthier; the doctor notices the mice's unusual resistance to the virus; the result is reported to the boss.

After a while the mice of the first group die from the poisoned food, and some of the mice of the new group survive.

The doctor prepares the final report:

Subject of the experiment: the rate of effective social reaction of mice to a lethal agent

Result: 3%

The boss issued the appropriate order to demolish the laboratory.