You can't trust atoms.

setup: You can’t trust atoms.

[Prosecutor] qua district attorney, sleeves rolled, pacing in front of the witness box Mr. Helium. Isn’t it true that on the night of September 4th, you were unstable?

[Helium] qua noble gas, technically inert, sweating noticeably I was at home. I was bonded to nothing. Ask anyone.

[Prosecutor] Anyone. Right. Like Lithium. Like Beryllium. Like every other highly reactive associate you’ve spent the last fourteen billion years with.

[Helium] Objection. Speculation about my orbital structure.

[Judge] qua tungsten, dense, glowing faintly Overruled. Continue.

[Prosecutor] Mr. Helium. Where were you when the universe began?

[Helium] I… I was a byproduct. Of fusion. I didn’t —

[Prosecutor] A byproduct. So you admit you were there.

[Shakes] qua hydrogen, the first witness, beaming This is the best of all possible periodic tables.

[Prosecutor] Mr. Hydrogen, please.

[Manyfeek] qua carbon-14, half-life dangling visibly from one pocket ((SLOWLY DECAYING)) The whole jury’s compromised. We’re all atoms.

[Judge] Strike that.

[Prosecutor] Mr. Helium. The defendant has accused atoms of fabricating physical reality. Of constituting all matter in a calculated and ongoing manner. The defense argues this was incidental. Coincidence.

[Helium] We had no choice.

[Prosecutor] You had every choice. You chose to bond. You chose to form molecules. You chose to be everything we see, touch, taste, and inhale.

[Helium] ((QUIETLY)) We are not denying authorship.

punchline: They make up everything.