Narration: Trurl then quickly increased the Good potential and overnight the society became self-sacrificing, everyone ran about frantically looking for someone to save—widows and orphans were in particularly great demand, especially if blind.

Narration: These were besieged with so many tokens of respect,

Narration: paid so many compliments, that the poor things fled and hid in the farthest corners of the box. In no time Trurl’s civilization faced a crisis: the acute shortage of orphans and other unfortunates made it next to impossible to find deserving objects of any properly monumental act of generosity.

Narration: As a result the micromites, after eighteen generations, began to worship the Absolute Orphan,

Narration: whom nothing in their boxlike vale of tears could ever deliver from dismal orphanhood; thus their excessive benevolence finally found relief in the infinite transcendental realm of metaphysics. They populated those higher spheres with various beings, the Triple Cripple for instance, or the Lord Up Above, who was always greatly to be pitied, and they neglected the things of this world and replaced all government agencies with religious orders.