Scampi: Can’t

Peter: Immanuel?

Scampi: Jesus.

PAUSE.

Scampi: You look like you got some sun.

Peter: Perhaps.

Scampi: Sometimes I think your hands are made of wax.

Peter: They are not.

Scampi: Candle wax.

Peter: Incorrect.

Scampi: I’m just saying.  That’s all.

Peter: Well.

Scampi: What do you think about that?

Peter: About you saying things that are untrue?

Scampi: Forget it.

Peter: I shall do my best.

Scampi: Do you hear a crackling?

Peter: In your voice?

Scampi: No.  In the air.

Peter: No.

Scampi: It’s electric.  The air.

Peter: Your voice is cracking a little.

Scampi: It isn’t.

Peter: Okay.

Scampi: It is not.

Peter: Fine.

Scampi: I like pinecones.

Peter: Oh?

Scampi: I do.  Nice shape they have.

Peter: It is an ingenious design.

Scampi: [with great disdain] Design!

Peter: Roomy, yet delicate.

Scampi: Just like you!

Peter: I am not roomy.

Scampi: [CACKLES]

Peter: Well.

Scampi: Horses are good, too.  All that kind of stuff.

Peter: What kind of stuff?

Scampi: You know, horses.  And stuff.

Peter: Horses?  And?

Scampi: Stuff.

Peter: Stuff.

Scampi: You know what I mean.

Peter: This is rarely an accurate statement.

Scampi: [GUFFAWS.]

Peter: I fail to see the humour.

Scampi: This is generally an accurate statement.

Peter: Are you quite finished?

Scampi: With what?

Peter: This tomfoolery.

Scampi: Tomfoolery!  Oho, Peter!

Peter: No comment.

Scampi: Har har.

PAUSE.

Scampi: You and your waxy fingertips.

Peter: They are not waxen.  This has been established.

Scampi: Waxy.

Peter: SIGHS.

Scampi: Do you know what a dagesh is?

Peter: Perhaps.

Scampi: I bet you don’t.

Peter: That’s rude.

Scampi: It’s a dot.

Peter: Ah.

Scampi: In Hebrew consonants.  It strengthens them.

Peter: I see.  Perhaps I did know that.

Scampi: Yeah right.  Anyway, can you imagine?  Strengthening a consonant.

Peter: I don’t see why not.

Scampi: Humph.  Imagine yourself.

Peter: I don’t generally have to.

Scampi: Being strengthened by a dot, I mean.

Peter: I am not a consonant.

Scampi: Don’t be too sure.

Peter: I am fairly sure.

Scampi: Well, it’s nothing to be smug about, anyway.

Peter: I don’t think—

Scampi: You probably think you’re some kind of a vowel!  Ha ha.

Peter: Incorrect.

Scampi: And sometimes y!

Peter: I am not a member of the alphabet.

Scampi: A member!  You’re killing me.

Peter: That is not the intent.

Scampi: Ah, the comprehensive Aristotelian tragedy.  Intent has nothing to do with it, I’m afraid.

Peter: That is cause to be fearful.

Scampi: It is.

THE SILENCE OF BLACKBIRDS.

Scampi: Would you like to know something else about the language of our fathers?

Peter: What are you talking about?

Scampi: The shva.  You know what that is?

Peter: I do not.

Scampi: I know.  You know what it does?

Peter: No.

Scampi: Ha.  It represents four things, four different things.  Grammatical entities.  Get this.

Peter: One hopes I shall, eventually.

Scampi: Resting, moving, and floating are the first three.  You know what the last one is?

Peter: Hang-gliding?

Scampi: No.  Bleating.  (Or bellowing.)  Can you imagine?

Peter: Being so often in your company leaves little about bleating and bellowing to the imagination.

Scampi: Humph.  I bet you’d be strengthened by a pinprick to the middle.

Peter: As I have recently stated, I am not a consonant.

Scampi: True.  You might deflate.

Peter: SIGHS.

Scampi: It would probably sound like that, too.  Or not.

PENSIVE MOMENT.

Peter: Are you suffering from a broken heart, perchance?

Scampi: I liked it better when we were talking about horses.