Hundred Second Theater: Perception Paul Knierim 2022 100 seconds --- Cop - Hard-nosed police detective. Perp - Allegedly robbed a store, if the senses can be trusted. --- SFX: police station background Cop: [threateningly] Just sign the confession. This is an open and shut case. We have five witnesses. Perp: What'd they see? Cop: They saw you holding a gun on the checkout clerk while she emptied the register for you. Perp: How do you know they saw that? Cop: They told me. And they'll swear to it. Perp: How do *they* know they saw that? Cop: [incredulous] Excuse me? Perp: How do they know? Cop: Photons from the light fixtures deflected off your body into their retinas, and that pattern was converted by their photoreceptors into electrical impulses which traversed their optic nerves to reach their brains, wherein these electrical impulses created the experience of your visage. This led to chemical changes at the connecting points between their neurons, which we call memory. Perp: [derisively] That's a complicated theory. There are so many ways it could go wrong, and no real evidence these memories relate to an external reality. Cop: Do you have another theory? Perp: Hallucinations. Cop: [incredulous] Five people had the same hallucination? Perp: It's possible. Cop: Do you have any *evidence* for this theory? Perp: The eels. Cop: What? The what? Perp: The eels. The ones up there, swimming in the air behind your head. Cop: Oh, them. What of them? Perp: We both see them. Don't you think that suggests a group hallucination? Cop: [a little uncertain] I think they've always been there. Perp: And your desk. Cop: My desk? Perp: Has it always been made of chocolate? Cop: I don't really remember specifically what it was made of. SFX: giant wall of water bursts through Perp: [shouting to be heard] And that wall of water? Cop: [shouting to be heard] We've probably always been drowning, why else would we have eels? None of this is relevant to your case, and if you think you're going to [cut off by going underwater] Cop: [glug glug style drowning noises, if you can manage, or I can find an effect for it] Perp: [glug glug style drowning noises, if you can manage, or I can find an effect for it]