Scampi: At arm’s length.

Peter: What are you doing?

Scampi: Thinking.

Peter: Out loud.

Scampi: In part.

PAUSE.

Scampi: I was thinking about fish tanks, you know, aquariums.  And about skating.

Peter: I wonder if I should cut my hair.

Scampi: (Funny you should mention that.)  And about the passage of time.

Peter: [STARES AT HIS OWN REFLECTION, PENSIVELY.]

Scampi: Your hair grows.  The seasons come and go.

Peter: Quite right.

Scampi: You cut your hair.  The summer comes.

Peter: I hope you’re not implying a causal relationship between those two events.

Scampi: I’m not.

Peter: Good.

Scampi: But I’m not not either.

Peter: I have no idea what that means.

Scampi: Oh Peter.  Humph.

PAUSE.

Scampi: Are you in a competition for Vainest Man of the Year?  Or something?

Peter: I am not vain.

Scampi: Then why do you keep staring at yourself?

Peter: I am not.

Scampi: What are you doing then?  Polishing the mirror?

Peter: I decline to comment.

Scampi: A damning indictment if I ever heard one.

Peter: One has doubts.

Scampi: You betcha, Thomas.

Peter: My name is not Thomas.

Scampi: Oh, right.  Sorry, Narcissus.

STONY SILENCE.

Scampi: When you massage your temple in that ferocious manner, it makes you look like someone with a headache.

Peter: Mm.

Scampi: What a rare and tender coincidence.

Peter: [CLEARS HIS THROAT.]

Scampi: You know, one thing I was thinking was more about a more kind of general thing.  Being in the world, the skating rinks.  Fires in the oil drums.

Peter: One wonders where you acquire such imagery.

Scampi: It’s true.  You don’t think it’s true but it is.

Peter: What is truth?

Scampi: O Peterocrates!  Whither go the tiny flapping sparrows of our immortal souls?

Peter: aUrm.

Scampi: I have no idea about that sort of noise.

Peter: Excuse me.

Scampi: I was thinking about tin cans clanging.  Terrariums and turtle tanks.

Peter: You sure were a busy little thinker today.

Scampi: Ain’t little.

Peter: Forgive me.  Compact.

Scampi: Yes, it’s been pretty hopping at the thinktank today.

Peter: This much is clear.

Scampi: What’s the first thing you remember?

Peter: About what?

Scampi: I’m not sure.

Peter: Okay.

Scampi: Sometimes, I can’t remember the first thing.  About anything.  Har har.  How about today?

Peter: How about it?

Scampi: Do you remember it?

Peter: As though it were yesterday.

Scampi:  Oh yeah.  High-larious.

PETER IS UNACCOUNTABLY PLEASED WITH HIMSELF.

Scampi: The streetlamps are coming on.

Peter: They are.

Scampi: Can I touch your face?

HARD PAUSE.

Scampi: Or your arm?

Peter: No.  Why?

Scampi: I just want to check.

Peter: Check what?

Scampi: To make sure.

Peter: That you’re not experiencing sensory dissonance?

Scampi: If that’s how you want to see it.

Peter: I don’t want to see it.

Scampi: There are seven buttons on your shirt.

Peter: I believe it.

Scampi: You don’t have to believe it.  Count ‘em.

Peter: Perhaps at a later juncture.

Scampi: Have it your way.  The streetlamps are coming on.

Peter: As you so keenly previously observed.

Scampi: I did.  And in the lamplight we are two fluttering bits of gauze.  With seven buttons.  And the earth’s gravitational pull.

Peter: It does tend to be present.

Scampi: Very dependable.  Old gravitas.

Peter: I’m not old.

Scampi: Yet.