The following is taken from my screen adaptation of Cosmic Banditos -- my lunatic novel about The Meaning of Life – which I’m working on for John Cusack’s company, New Crime Productions.

All you need as a set up is that “Tina” is the nymphomaniacal daughter of a physicist that “Quark” thinks holds the key to What It All Means. “The Old Indian” is a diminutive holy man in a loin cloth and size 25 Air Jordans who did his post doctoral studies at Cambridge…

The scene takes place in a shack in the wilds in an un-named country in South America while Quark is on the run from every law enforcement agency known to man…

…Time passes as Quark delves into Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle. Quark puts the banana on the table next to the box of Milk Bone Flavor Snacks For Large Dogs and Tina’s mega-vibrator. He paces, deep in thought. The Old Indian watches from his squat on the floor.

Quark goes back to the table and picks up Tina’s mega-vibrator, which was next to the banana. Holds it up.

QUARK
See this banana?

The Old Indian’s eyes move in their sockets to the vibrator Quark is holding up. Quark stares intently at The Old Indian; he has not noticed his error.

QUARK
“Banana stuff” as you so quaintly put it, is mostly carbon atoms, which are in turn are comprised of even smaller entities, subatomic entities. And what are these subatomic entities made of?
(a grandly emphatic gesture)
Nothing we can call real. Nothingness!
(a beat to let this sink in)
Not only nothingness, but undulations of nothingness!

The vibrator fires up, undulating and buzzing and blinking in pink and red and blaring “Girls just wanna have fu-un.”

Quark, now realizing he has Tina’s mega-vibrator in his hand and not a banana, is having trouble shutting the thing off. Trying to maintain his concentration (plus his dignity) he yells over Cyndi Lauper…

QUARK
And even… the undulations… are only…
(struggling with the vibrator)
…probability undulations!

The Old Indian closes his eyes and commences humming, a high pitched waver, like a siren, rising in volume. High Pockets, who doesn’t like sirens, starts howling. Brandishing the undulating vibrator…

QUARK
As Tina’s Father would say, this… banana… or whatever… PROBABLY exists!

Quark manages to shut off the vibrator. Regaining his composure…

QUARK
Einstein was not only wrong, but doubly wrong! Not only DOES God play dice with the Universe, but sometimes HE THROWS THEM WHERE THEY CANNOT BE SEEN!
(wild-eyed)
How’s your Great Spirit doing now, Jack?!

The Old Indian’s siren/humming stops abruptly; High Pockets shuts his trap too. Silence. The Old Indian is stock-still in his squat, eyes open but glassy. Quark waves a hand in front of The Old Indian’s eyes. He doesn’t blink. Quark pokes him gently. No reaction. A little harder. Gives him a shove. The Old Indian topples over, his body frozen in the squatting position like a marble statue.

Quark puts him back upright.

QUARK (Voice Over)
As with Senor Rodriguez, I had shaken up The Old Indian with my views on the underlying nature of subatomic reality, What It All Means, and Tina’s Father.

Whoooshh. A rocket propelled grenade roars through the shack, entering through one window, exiting out the window on the other side, barely missing Quark. A violent explosion. The shack rocks, Tina’s hanging lace panties flutter down.

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Brokeback Mountain, the Sequel Excerpt: The Zero Deal