The Rodent and the Ruminant
(With apologies to Aesop)
“The gods too are fond of a joke”
Aristotle
Once upon a time on the great African Serengeti Plain lived Quentin the Quantum Mouse.
He was a fine specimen of mousehood, handsome, confident, energetic, able to cope with anything the world threw at him, an answer for every problem. Nothing fazed him; he scorned locality by appearing to be in two places at once; he ignored death for being alive/dead was much the same to him, and thus he knew that, in all probability, he would continue to function well into the foreseeable future. But, if he had a weak spot, it was his yearning for a union with another creature roaming the great plain. He knew that one day, unlikely though it seemed, he would consummate that union with the help of
his mighty intellect 
his bags of optimism 
and his ladder of desire. 
Yes – Quentin undeniably had the hots for Gertrude the Gravitating Giraffe.
She was his antithesis, tall, statuesque, languid, lissom and lovely, a positive Queen of the Cosmos possessing as she did that indefinable something enabling her to attract all and sundry over great distances.
She was, of course, aware of the effect she had on those around her and more than cognisant of Quentin’s pursuit of her bearing his intellect, ladder and optimism. Having been warned by her mother to be careful of snakes in the grass like him her behaviour, unlike his, left nothing to chance. Even so she did allow a little flirtatious kunik each time Quentin succeeded in shinning up the acacia tree upon which she was browsing and, having gained the canopy, skip nimbly along to the very leaf she was nibbling. This was always something of an event for Quentin, expanding his horizons no end, but he knew to take care lest her rasping tongue did untold damage to his optimism. His wave function all but collapsed during these moments of physical contact as he imagined, floating above them, symbols of their affection bearing those three little words – QED.
In spite of her mother’s advice Gertrude was flattered by Quentin’s amorous attention – after all anything is better than being ignored.
And thus life went on until one hot afternoon Quentin thought he would relax for a while and catch up on a little reading. So he found a suitable pile of dried dung under the tree recently visited by Gertrude and, after sitting comfortably, began to read…
…It was a copy of Nature containing a fascinating paper on string theory, right up Quentin’s alley, and he was fully immersed in it when suddenly he had a light bulb moment. He jumped to his feet with a cry of “U-reeka” and continued to leap up and down with gusto. Onlookers later remarked that so vigorous were his actions that they feared for the integrity of his little bags of optimism. Fortunately they remained intact.
Quentin was quite beside himself. “String!”, he cried, “of course why didn’t I think of that before?”
In a trice he plucked an ipad from about his person, logged on to his Amazon account and before you could say Neils Bohr had ordered a lengthy hank of stout string and some brass balls. His idea was, as all ideas should be, fiendishly simple. With the the stout string and brass balls he would make a bolas 
with which he could lay Gertrude low thus bringing the object of his desire down to his level. A recent development by Amazon enabled them to directly teleport the balls and string so they arrived at Quentin’s location in no time at all. He quickly set to work and for the next few days could be seen practising with his bolas until he could ensnare the trunk of an acacia tree from ten metres with, for an unprincipled quantum mouse, an uncanny, classical, accuracy. The very next day Quentin made his move. He crept up to the unsuspecting Gertrude, minus his ladder of desire but fully armed with bolas and optimism. He whirled the bolas around his head and threw it with devastating effect towards Gertrude. She, in mid-browse, was suddenly overcome as the bolas wrapped around her hind legs causing her to slump to the ground with an overwhelming feeling of entanglement. Quentin seized the moment and sprinted towards the object of his desire. He stood before her and rubbing his hands with anticipatory glee he…
…woke up. Poor Quentin had been dreaming all the time. In his hand he held, not a copy of Nature, but a bodice ripping penny dreadful called Natural Desires by his favourite author Milly McBoon. So our hero was thwarted in his plans and union with Gertrude remained a distant hope; he would have to look for another string to his bow.
Never before having even dreamt of failure Quentin, drawing on his inexhaustible optimism, reflected on this novel state of affairs; he thought so deeply about the problem that it made his little head throb. Finally, in desperation, he remembered a distant relative with whom, as a young mouse, he used to have long discussions concerning the secrets of the universe. Could he help perhaps?
This guy was a giant pouched rat well versed, as an amateur of course, in the delicate art of sniffing out solutions to difficult problems. He was a strange sort of cove, a somewhat portly fellow who had joined the Kenyan Navy as a non-commissioned officer and was known universally as Bosun Higgs. He usually wore a striped tea shirt and rather unfashionable, poorly tailored bell-bottomed trousers with legs of slightly differing lengths – and an eye patch. His mother, whilst driving a circuitoue route in Switzerland, and heavily pregnant, was involved in a mighty collision precipitating his birth amid much crash debris. As a result he lost an eye which allowed him to say later in life to Quentin’s parents that they need not worry about their offspring because “I, Bosun Higgs, will keep an eye out for him.” He had the good fortune to be married to a lass whose high cheekbones and Lissajous figure
marked her out as someone able to cast a shadow over even the ancient world’s greatest beauties. When strangers met her it came as no surprise to learn that she earned her living as a model. As a show of affection for his wife he bought her a pet, a Great Dane with a 
magnetic personality, which he called Reluctance. When returning to navel duties he was often overheard saying rather grandly to his wife “Farewell dear, I leave you with great Reluctance.” He was a big soft beast – as was the dog.
Like Quentin, Bosun Higgs had an all consuming passion for physics touching on its every material aspect. So, eager to renew a long forgotten relationship, he texted Higgs with the message,
“Cum with S & R 4 T & chat Qxxx”,
quickly receiving the reply,
“Ok h8 T ♥ coffee BH et al”.
A wide ranging and fruitful talk followed before Bosun Higgs received an urgent call to return to base for further naval duties but not before leaving Quentin with the germ of an idea.
Their discussion had covered the history and evolution of the subject which most interested Quentin which was of course Gertrude. During their conversation the name of Charles Darwin had been mentioned thereby sowing a small seed in Quentin’s fertile mind. He knew that both he and Gertrude were mammals and, if Darwin was right, they must have had a common ancestor even if it was aeons ago in that great sea of life filled with all kinds of primitive zooplanckton. There would be found the missing link, two tiny creatures sufficiently alike biologically to mount a full union but destined eventually to follow quite different evolutionary paths. Quentin draw great comfort from this idea which would have been a relief to Gertrude had she known. He found it intellectually satisfying that he and she shared a common plancktonic ancestry and he fancied that it was emotionally satisfactory too because it explained the strong attraction he felt for Gertrude in the here and now.
Quentin’s obsession remained firmly in the forefront of his mind as he, along with the best brains in the world, wrestled with the grand union problem. Gertrude meanwhile was quite unabashed still maintaining an aloof distance whilst allowing Quentin to continue chasing her knowing that, eventually, she would catch him!
And so we draw to the end of our story. To this day visitors to the Serengeti may be lucky enough to see Quentin still in pursuit of Gertrude who, of course, looks as lovely, lissom and languid as ever but Quentin now wears the suspicion of a frown as perhaps he seeks to overcome the disappointment of that exotic dream.
THE END
The moral of this story is to be found in the words o’ that great Scottish optimist Robert the Bruce,
“If at firrrst ye dinnae succeed – then bolasts!”
QED