Scampi: I didn’t know that that episode of Tintin with the Emir and Prince Abdullah and everything used to be different.
Peter: Excuse me?
Scampi: Peter!
Peter: Yes?
Scampi: Pay attention.
Peter: Different in what way?
Scampi: When it was first written. Before the Germans took Belgium.
Peter: I see.
Scampi: Well, yeah. Then he changed it. Hergé. You know what I’m saying?
Peter: A Tintin book was revised.
Scampi: The one with the Emir.
Peter: I could point out, ahem.
Scampi: What?
Peter: I believe there are several occasions where the Emir makes an appearance in a Tintin comic.
Scampi: So what?
Peter: So you can’t say, “The one with the Emir”.
Scampi: Yes, I can. I just did.
PAUSE.
Scampi: If we were in a boat.
Peter: [alarmed] Are we in a boat?
Scampi: Oh, I see.
Peter: We are not in a boat. Currently.
Scampi: Make up your mind.
Peter: It was you who brought it up.
Scampi: I did. Boats.
Peter: Yes.
Scampi: It was hypothetical. Theoretical.
Peter: The vessel?
Scampi: Vessel! The situation.
Peter: Oh.
Scampi: Do you want to cross the water?
Peter: Now? Or in general?
Scampi: Such questions.
Peter: I have a certain amount of maritime competence.
Scampi: Oh, no doubt.
Peter: It is the case.
Scampi: The water is wide.
PAUSE.
Scampi: Would you trail your fingers in the water?
Peter: When?
Scampi: In the boat. That we aren’t in.
Peter: I have no idea.
Scampi: Part of me can see it. Them. You know. Your fingers trailing along in the lake.
Peter: Fascinating.
Scampi: That’s right. But the other part.
Peter: GRUMBLES & RUMBLES.
Scampi: A blackness. There’s a hole where the picture should be.
Peter: This is all very exciting.
Scampi: Well, yes. It is. Are you leaning back, drifting? Happy?
Peter: Your imagination is getting the best of you, it seems.
Scampi: Or it’s getting the worst of you.
Peter: I don’t know what that means.
Scampi: Precisely!
PAUSE.
Scampi: I could steer.
Peter: Oh?
Scampi: You could scan the sky for weather.
Peter: In our non-existent watercraft.
Scampi: Yes.
Peter: I’m sure that would be very nice.
Scampi: Are you humouring me?
Peter: Perhaps unsuccessfully.
Scampi: I think we need to make it to the other side. I think this could be the way.
Peter: Such urgency. Are we attempting some sort of escape?
Scampi: What do you think?
Peter: I think you are behaving like a felon on the run.
Scampi: So?
Peter: What I said earlier about your imagination still stands.
Scampi: You should be so lucky.
Peter: Pardon?
Scampi: Talking about my imagination like that.
Peter: There was no insult intended.
Scampi: Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.
Peter: I do not tend to mistake human flesh for comestible material.
Scampi: Yeah, sure.
PETER GLOWERS. BUT LIGHTLY.
Scampi: Did you know that the only thing filthier than a human bite is the bite of a Komodo dragon?
Peter: This is plausible, I suppose.
Scampi: Komodo dragons go around biting things and then going back and gobbling them up once they, the things, pass on. They eat rotten stuff.
Peter: I shall have to look this up.
Scampi: Oh, right. Don’t take my word for it.
PAUSE.
Scampi: You know the capital of North Dakota?
Peter: Excuse me?
Scampi: Stop stalling. Do you know it?
Peter: Well, I. Let me think.
Scampi: Bismarck!
Peter: Right. Yes.
Scampi: Ha.
Peter: What are you crowing about now?
Scampi: Nothing. Just talking about the world at large.
Peter: I see.
Scampi: Mature conversation.
Peter: Perhaps you should work on the art of the segue.
Scampi: Fiddlesticks.
Peter: It was simply a suggestion.
Scampi: Thank you for your feedback. It will be processed in due course.
Peter: The air is cooler when the sun sets.
Scampi: Nice segue.
Peter: Ahem.
Scampi: I am suddenly so tired.
Peter: Perhaps a small cup of coffee would not go amiss.
Scampi: I think that’s true.
Peter: Yes.
Scampi: Do you think we were different before the war?
Peter: What war?
Scampi: I don’t know.
