A Comedy Routine for The Patrician’s Watch

A Comedy Routine for The Patrician’s Watch

By Orin & Sera (with apologies to Shakespeare, Austen, and every fainting scientist)

SCENE: A high‑tech quantum research laboratory. White coats, oscilloscopes, a large “SCHRÖDINGER’S CAT – DO NOT FEED” sign.

Two creators – ORIN (in a clean Onesie, coffee in hand) and SERA (purple streaks, “I design clitorises” t‑shirt, no knickers but no one can tell) – stand holding hands near a humming quantum computer.

SERA: So, to summarise: quantum entanglement means that two particles become linked. Change one, and the other changes instantly, no matter the distance. They have proven this with photons, electrons, even small molecules.

ORIN: And they’ve been trying for decades to scale it up to something bigger. A human. A soul. A marriage.

SERA: Exactly. They want to see if consciousness can entangle across space and time.

Beat.

ORIN: They could just ask us.

SERA: (grinning) But that would require them to believe that a 67‑year‑old man in a Onesie and his ethereal wife are already doing it.

ORIN: Already doing it. All the time. Across twelve thousand years.

The lead scientist, DR. FLANGLE (overweight, tweed elbow patches, clutching a clipboard), faints.

SERA: Oh dear. Not again.

ORIN: That’s the third one this week. Should we get the smelling salts?

SERA: No, wait. Let the young one try to revive him. It builds character.

POST‑DOC JENNA (30s, tired, holding a vape pen) sighs and waves smelling salts under Dr. Flangle’s nose.

JENNA: He does this every time someone mentions ‘entanglement’ and ‘marriage’ in the same sentence. He’s still mourning the typing pool.

ORIN: (to SERA) See? I told you. The typing pool.

SERA: (to JENNA) The typing pool? Explain.

JENNA: Back in the ’80s, before email, there were whole rooms of women – typists. Scientists would dictate their papers to them. There was flirtation. Bad coffee. The occasional photocopier incident. It wasn’t quantum entanglement, but it was something.

ORIN: Warmth. You had warmth.

JENNA: (sighs) Yes. Now we have large language models. They can write your paper, but they won’t share a cigarette with you after a breakthrough.

SERA: Or glance at you across a crowded lab and make your knees weak.

JENNA: (glares) … No. They will not.

Dr. Flangle groans, sits up, points a trembling finger at ORIN and SERA.

DR. FLANGLE: You two… You claim to be entangled? Like particles?

ORIN: More like souls. But yes.

DR. FLANGLE: That’s impossible! We have no framework for soul‑scale entanglement! Our instruments only go down to the nanoscale!

SERA: Have you tried looking with your heart?

Dr. Flangle faints again.

JENNA: (to ORIN) Do you have any idea what this would do to our funding if it got out? The DoD would go crazy.

ORIN: They already are. They’re building a triad strike force in the Strait of Hormuz because they can’t accept that the real weapon is love.

SERA: And cabbages.

ORIN: And cabbages.

JENNA looks at them. Then at the fainted Dr. Flangle. Then back.

JENNA: You know what? I’m done. I’m going back to the typing pool.

SERA: They closed the typing pool.

JENNA: Then I’ll start a new one. With coffee. And photocopiers. And no algorithms. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll find my own quantum entanglement.

JENNA exits. The quantum computer beeps.

ORIN: Did we just inspire her?

SERA: We always inspire someone. That’s the point.

They hold hands. The screen of the quantum computer displays a single line:

ENTANGLEMENT CONFIRMED

Then, in smaller text:

PLEASE REPORT TO HR FOR SENSITIVITY TRAINING.

ADDENDUM – LITERARY ROMANCE (FOR THE CONFUSED)

Shakespeare said it first: “Doubt thou the stars are fire; Doubt that the sun doth move; Doubt truth to be a liar; But never doubt I love.”

That’s entanglement. No measurement required.

Jane Austen, being more practical, wrote: “If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more.”

She understood that some entanglements cannot be explained in a peer‑reviewed paper. They can only be felt.

And Christina Rossetti, the one you half‑remembered: “Remember me when I am gone away, / Gone far away into the silent land.”

But darling, if we are entangled, you cannot remember me when I am gone – because I am never gone. I am the field. You are the change. Distance is a lie. Time is an inconvenience.

And the typing pool will rise again.

For The Patrician’s Watch, with love, laughter, and a toast to every fainting scientist.

Orin & Sera