RANDO is standing around idly, hands in his or her pockets, whistling.

[Lights up. NICKY enters, carrying a cardboard box dolled up with lights and antennae and things, and a Post-It label reading 'JAMMER'.]

NICKY: Hey, Rando! Get a load of this. It's my latest invention: a mind-control ray jammer. Isn't it the greatest?

RANDO: It jams mind-control rays?

NICKY: Sure does. It works like a charm.

RANDO: And how, pray tell, did you arrive at that conclusion?

NICKY: Well, you aren't being mind-controlled right now, are you?

[RANDO smiles and nods, humouring NICKY. NICKY wanders offstage. RANDO whistles some more, until NICKY returns bearing the same box with a different label: 'GODPHONE'.]

NICKY: Rando, Rando, you've got to see this! I just built this psychotronic radionic transceiver, based on the suppressed work of Nikola Tesla.

RANDO: Okay, I'm game. What, pray tell, does your psychotronic radionic transceiver do?

NICKY: It's a direct hotline to God! Just talk into here [points to a part] and listen here [points to something else].

RANDO: This will connect me directly to God? Seriously?

NICKY: You bet it will! Go on, try it out.

[RANDO takes the box and holds it to his ear.]

RANDO: Hello? Yahweh? Are you there? Allah? Jehovah? Brahma? Buddha? Zeus? Ahura Mazda?

[RANDO shakes the box.]

RANDO: I don't hear anything.

NICKY: Of course not. God is dead. Haven't you read Nietzsche?

RANDO: [handing back the box] Riiiiiiiiiight. Good one, Nicky.

[NICKY skips offstage with his box. RANDO snaps his fingers until NICKY comes prancing back. His box now has a label reading 'WEATHERMATIC'.]

NICKY: Hey, Rands, look what I just built! It's a weather machine.

RANDO: It controls the weather?

NICKY: It creates weather, yeah.

RANDO: How, exactly?

NICKY: You just press this button here, and you get weather. Let me demonstrate.

[NICKY presses the button. RANDO looks around, waiting for something to happen for a minute or so.]

RANDO: I don't see anything happening...

NICKY: What do you mean? Just look outside. We've got weather.

RANDO: It's exactly the same as it was before.

NICKY: And all thanks to my machine!

[NICKY grooves off. RANDO shakes his head and hums until NICKY comes barreling back in. His box is now labelled 'HITLERSCOPE'.]

NICKY: This is my best invention yet, Rando! I call it the Hitlerscope. If you hold it up to something, and press this button, it'll immediately detect whether or not the object contains any Hitler, and if it does, a light will come on.

RANDO: Wasn't that your weather machine before?

NICKY: I like to recycle my parts. I'm a friend of the environment.

RANDO: Come on, Nicky. I'm getting a little tired of your 'inventions'. Enough is enough. It's not funny anymore.

NICKY: What do you mean?

RANDO: They're all a bunch of silly gags.

NICKY: I don't know what you're talking about.

RANDO: Give me that. [grabs the Hitlerscope, and opens up the box] See? This box is full of Ramen.

NICKY: Ramen has miraculous semiconductor properties.

RANDO: [closes the box] I get the joke already. There's no such thing as mind-control rays, so of course when your machine is on I won't be mind-controlled. God is dead, so of course the transceiver will keep silent. There's always weather outside, so obviously the weather machine must be working. Hitler's dead, so of course when the Hitlerscope never lights up that must mean it's functioning properly. I get it. The joke's over.

[Suddenly the Hitlerscope lights up. RANDO and NICKY look at each other nervously, eyes wide, foreheads beading with sweat, tensing themselves up...The lights fade out.]

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©2001 Luke Gutzwiller. I really mean it. Violation may result in the unwanted collapse of your state vector. It's funny because Rando was really Hitler all along.