本文由胡宗峰教授授权爱思英语发布，转载请注明出处和作者

编者按：爱思英语网推出全新栏目《佳作欣赏》，旨在为各位网友提供互相、探讨、交流的平台。《佳作欣赏》主要设置以下子栏目：英文写作，英汉互译，方法，人生感悟。除英文写作以外，其余子栏目中英文皆可。如果您有好的作品，请向我们推荐。原创优先，转载作品请注明作者及出处。爱思，因你而精彩；爱思，大家的平台！

在线投稿：http://www.24en.com/custom/add.html

约翰·雷斯莫斯基：数羊（20）

Counting  Sheep

John Calvin Rezmerski

数羊

（美国）约翰·雷斯莫斯基

胡宗锋 李 萌 译

The Center Cannot Hold

（二十）研究中心无法再维持

In Ireland, where the lamentable incident of inter­species violence had occurred, an organization was organized, called SheepSake. It included not only some of the scientists involved in the experi­ments which had inadvertently created the situation, but also a number of the founders of the newly established Center for Genetic Ecology, as well as the requisite number of Catholic priests. The Pope was said to be preparing an encyclical. SheepSake (which one conservative wag promptly dubbed "bleating harp liberals") called for a worldwide voluntary morator­ium on the very kind of research that most tickled the fancies of tabloid readers. Like most voluntary moratoria, it generated much favorable comment and few promises. The tabloids reported the moratorium in brief stories on inside pages, while the front pages carried screaming headlines like, "Pontiff Says Sheep Have Souls."

The United States of America announced that it would not be bound by any international agreement that threatened the security of American sheep producers and so forth, and promising that any attempt to interfere with etcetera would be countered with the full measure of military and so on. The Department of Homeland Security ratcheted its alert status up to vermilion, and issued regulations prohi­biting the admission into the country of any sheep or cows whose intelligence had been enhanced.

Less than a day later, an Indiana congressman introduced a bill writing those regulations into the federal code. At the behest of the President, or perhaps the Vice-President, a senator from Missis­sippi pushed through an amendment requiring the immigration and Naturalization Service to deny entry visas to any persons with intelligence above the U.S. national average, said average to be computed from the results of IQ tests to be conducted annually by designated faith-based organizations.

在爱尔兰，也就是可悲的物种暴力事件发生的地方，诞生了一个新的组织——“为了羊”。这个组织的成员不仅有那些不小心造成此事故的实验科学家们，还有一些新成立的遗传生态学中心的创建者，和一定数量的天主教神父。据说教皇正在为此准备教皇通谕。“为了羊”（有好事的保守派迅速反应，讽刺它为“伴着竖琴的咩咩叫的自由党人”）号召全球自愿中止羊研究。这引发了地摊小报读者的幻想。跟大多数自愿中止一样，好评如朝，但响应者却寥寥。小报们在内页中简单报道了关于中止的事情，但其头版的标题却是甚是夸张：“教皇说羊有灵魂。”

美利坚合众国声明他们不会被任何威胁到美国羊生产等的国际条约所限制，并承诺对于任何相关干涉，美国都将给以全力的军事打击。国土安全部将其警戒状态升至红色，并发布条例，限制任何高智力的羊或牛进入本国。

此条例发布还不到一天，来自印第安纳州的一位国会议员就上书将此条例录入联邦法典。根据总统，或许是副总统的命令，一位来自于密西西比州的参议员建议增加条例修订案。建议移民局拒签任何智商高于美国人平均智商水平的人的入美签证。全国平均智商水平由指定可信的组织每年进行测试和统计得出。