Play 232: What’s Even More Bizarre Than Particle Physicists’ Senses of Humor? (Hint: the answer is not “the strange quark”)

CHARACTERS
VINCENT, 17
WILL, 17

(Vincent is sitting in a chair reading a book.)

(Will enters.)

WILL
What’re you reading?

(Vincent looks up from his book.)

VINCENT
Warped Passages.

(He puts the book down.)

WILL
What’s it about?

VINCENT
Modern physics and stuff.

WILL
That’s cool.

VINCENT
Yeah.

(Beat.)

WILL
Wait, so what’s it about exactly?

VINCENT
A lot of stuff.

WILL
Like what?

VINCENT
It’s complicated.

WILL
Like quantum mechanics?

VINCENT
Among other things.

WILL
Like what?

VINCENT
As I said, a lot.

WILL
Relativity and string theory and stuff like that?

VINCENT
That too.

WILL
Anything else?

VINCENT
Yeah.

WILL
A lot?

VINCENT
Tons.

WILL
Like quarks and all that shit?

VINCENT
Yeah.

(Beat.)

Quarks, squarks—

WILL
Squarks?

VINCENT
Yeah.

WILL
What the hell are squarks?

VINCENT
They’re the superpartners of quarks.

WILL
Superpartners?

VINCENT
Yup.

(Will laughs.)

WILL
Are you serious?

VINCENT
Completely.

(Will laughs.)

VINCENT
I know, all the names sound pretty ridiculous.

WILL
All?

VINCENT
Yeah.

WILL
So there’s more like that?

(Vincent smiles.)

VINCENT
Many.

WILL
Like what else?

VINCENT
Well there’s a lot of things with super in them.

WILL
You already mentioned superpartners.

VINCENT
Yeah, there’s those, but also supersymmetry, superstring theory…

(His voice trails off.)

WILL
Any more?

VINCENT
Not that I can think.

WILL
That’s too bad.

VINCENT
That was only the ones with super in them though,

WILL
So there’s more ridiculous names?

(Vincent laughs.)

VINCENT
You have no idea.

(Beat.)

Like all the quark names.

WILL
Yeah?

VINCENT
Up, down, top, bottom, strange, charm.

WILL
(Seriously.)
You’re shitting me.

VINCENT
Nope.

WILL
Seriously?

VINCENT
Completely.

(Will laughs.)

VINCENT
Know what’s my favorite though?

(Will manages to stop laughing.)

WILL
What?

VINCENT
Their superpartner names.

WILL
What are they?

VINCENT
You just add an “s.”

WILL
Yeah?

VINCENT
My favorite is stop squark.

(Beat.)

WILL
Are you joking?

VINCENT
No.

(Will laughs.)

VINCENT
Apparently particle physicists are.

WILL
No shit.

(Beat.)

You ever wonder if they’re just making this shit up?

VINCENT
A little sometimes.

WILL
Sounds like it to me.

VINCENT
Or maybe the worlds just more bizarre than even particle physicists’ senses of humor.

(Beat.)

WILL
(Skeptical.)
Maybe.

VINCENT
Makes sense to me.

WILL
Really?

VINCENT
Yeah.

(Beat.)

WILL
How?

VINCENT
Shit’s strange.

(Beat.)

WILL
So?

VINCENT
So why should the universe be any different?

(Pause.)

WILL
I guess you have a point.

VINCENT
Or maybe a string.

WILL
(Thoroughly confused.)
What?

(Beat.)

VINCENT
Nevermind.

(Blackout.)