As a joke, the doctors trained one of the monkeys they had nursed back to health to raise the flag over their observation post at dawn and lower it at dusk.
That monkey taught the other monkeys to perform this trick, and pretty soon there were flags all over the research center, raised and lowered by monkeys.
When one of the scientists tried to lower the flag by himself, the monkey bit him.
That scientist is known as Patient Zero in the records.
Not that there’s anybody left to read the records.
The monkeys still raise and lower the flags.
2 thoughts on “Raise the flag”
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I enjoyed this story. While I was listening I thought of a completely different ending.
As joke one of the researchers taught one of our test monkeys to raise the flag every day. a lot of days we don’t have all that much to do around here but wait. In time that monkey taught one of his off spring to raise the flag, and on down the line. They put it up and take it down everyday. Now it is a good thing as we are all getting weaker and can’t raise the flag ourselves.
“Yes sir, it appears they have a cure, they raise the flag everyday and it well past this incubation period.”
Cool, Jeffrey. Always neat to see where people turn on the road and what they encounter there.
-ls