The answer that satisfies was a statement conceived and constructed by a trio of mice in a dark, subterranean dwelling. The absence of light may have been one factor involved in the epic failure of their translation from ideas into speech and eventually into writing. The three mice were the best and brightest of their generation, and at an early age they agreed to spend their lives unlike typical mice did. Instead of spending their precious few years of life fucking and eating and running away from various predators, wild and domesticated, they vowed that they would search out the answers to life's most important questions.
The mice spent their first year learning as much as micely possible about the world around. They explored, examined and observed all the wonders that were life, and when that first year had ended each mouse shared what he had learned about the world with the others. After much debate, the mice concurred that their second year would be spent in private contemplation, and it was. Each mouse lived an independent life, spending almost all his time (not required for daily maintenance) in peaceful cerebration. Each would lie in the shade of a tree, in the tall grass of a meadow or on a rock near the trickle of a stream, reflecting on what he had learned during his first year.
At the end of their second year, the mice came together once more. They began to describe their newly acquired ideas to one another but were quickly immersed in heated debate. They agreed that each mouse had very strong opinions and theories and discussing them would take a long time, so they decided that the third year of their lives would be spent in deliberation. Each morning the three mice would wake up, eat breakfast and then begin their discussions, pausing to routinely eat, and disputing late into the night. It wasn't long before the mice ceased to leave their hole altogether. Their days would consist of only eating, sleeping and debating.
Three days before the end of their third year, the mice came to an agreement on a single unifying answer to all of life's most important questions, but when they went outside into the brightness of day, to transcribe this answer into the written word, they had a horrifying realization. After so long in their burrow together, the mice had gone blind. They hadn't realized it had happened, being used to the complete darkness and safety of life underground, until they felt the warmth of the sun's ray, but could not see the sparkle of the world illuminated.
The micen trio were as equally heartbroken about the loss of their sight as they were concerned about how to write their final, definitive answer. The mice called out, begging for any animal that could write, to come and assist them. A bird, not unlike myself, was the first to answer the call. The mice recited their answer, asked the bird to read it back, recited again, and the bird read it back again, until both parties were positive the message had been translated properly. The mice adorned the good bird with abundant praises, but the fact of the matter was, this bird was not a good bird. He was a bad bird. He did not have any interest in the answer to life's most important questions. Basically, he just liked to party. He was a party bird, and he flew away from the three mice feeling like partying to celebrate what he had just done.
The mice had their answer framed so that it would last for a long, long time, and mounted it on a large boulder that was sure to last. Feeling proud of their lives' work, the three mice went to sleep for the last time.
For many years, thousands of animals passed the framed words and came to know them well, and even long after the frame and its contents had fallen and been swept away, animals remembered the words and passed them along to their kin. To this day I often hear the words the three wise mice never read being recited to me, "Dirty, dirty, likes to flirty, sings his name it's Billy Birdy!"
