There is an English-language axiom, first attributed to French mathematician Émile Borel in 1913, that goes approximately as follows: “An infinite number of monkeys, with an infinite number of typewriters, given an infinite amount of time, could eventually recreate the entirety of the works written by William Shakespeare.”
The axiom, beyond misrepresenting the abject absurdity of attempting to quantify infinity, and neglecting entirely to consider the amount of care and upkeep required to operate such an obscene spectacle, was intended as nothing more than a tongue-in-cheek exasperation, to convey that given sufficient time and resources, just about anything may be possible, by just about anyone — or anything.
However, for billionaire Malcolm Farmstone, the readily apparent truth of the Infinite Monkey Theorem was not such a solved dilemma. Not at all, in fact. “The Monkey Hypothesis” as he so-called it, was the singular terrestrial puzzle that Farmstone’s enormous wealth had yet to illuminate for him. It tormented his thoughts—day and night. So much so, that in 2025 Malcolm established “The Farmstone Foundation for Literacy and the Arts,” a not-for-profit philanthropic venture which, through the convoluted power of Byzantine bureaucracy, along with several strategically placed donations, would allow the man to pursue the experiment that had remained restlessly ruminating in the recesses of his mind, ever since the moment he’d first learned of it.
One shudders to imagine how many innocent cats might have perished if Malcolm had instead seized upon 20th century Austrian physicist and Nobel laureate Erwin Schrödinger’s “Cat Paradox.” All those poor kitties.
The mechanics of launching the project would actually prove quite straightforward. Through an old contact, first introduced through a friend of his father—a veteran private zoo magnate, whom Crispin Roulette Farmstone had served with in Vietnam—Malcolm was quickly appointed sole proprietor to an international network of monkey commerce, a once multi-million dollar clandestine global trade, now his alone.
Zoologists and experimental biologists have often mockingly called the early 2030s “The Great Monkey Famine,” as Farmstone’s Grand Experiment had effectively appropriated all the monkeys from every zoo, circus, and event-wedding in the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
At the beginning of every month, an airfreight package would arrive at the remote warehouse where Malcolm had sequestered The Grand Experiment, a long abandoned upstate New York belt buckle manufacturing plant, which he ambitiously christened “The Jungle.” Shipments consisted of a single rather massive crate, containing approximately 3,000 adult monkeys. Malcolm was always careful to use the qualifier, “approximately,” as invariably, a handful would go missing in transit. There had even been one time when the crate population at arrival had exceeded the departure headcount, the unintended consequence of a single particularly fecund male monkey who’d erroneously been sent with an all-female shipment. Upon their arrival at Farmstone’s Jungle, the monkeys would undergo a copious battery of exacting medical examinations. “The Monkey Emperor of the Empire State,” insisted on acquiring only those subjects whom he considered to be the very essence of prime simian health.
Despite what one might have expected, the early years of Farmstone’s project were relatively peaceful, notwithstanding, the man spent every day for more than a half-decade toiling over a monument to his own cosmic insignificance and rapidly fleeting mortality. And in all those years, the massive troop of monkeys had accomplished little-to-nothing to bring about Farmstone’s initial objective. In fact, he had yet to satisfy even the most basic element of his experiment. There weren’t infinite monkeys in the Jungle, not even close! While it’s true there may have been more macaques, baboons, and marmosets than any one person ever could hope to count in a lifetime— approximately 16,045,202 was unquestionably somewhat shy of infinity.
After enough time, the back wall of the already overstuffed factory had to be raised to meet local zoning and fire code regulations, and to accommodate the constant influx of ever more monkey arrivals. By the time Malcolm’s patience had begun to wear thin, the building expansion had surpassed even his wildest expectations, both logistically — and financially. The construction crew had selected a strategy intended to be minimally intrusive to the ongoing experiment, reconfiguring the once square-shaped building into a spiraling warping fractal of madness, now extending for almost four miles towards an unfinished portal to acres of property that provided a buffer for the rapidly metastasizing edifice. To this day, the outer wall remains unfinished.
