Scampi: I guess I still do.

Peter: What do you still do?

Scampi: This is the saddest song.

Peter: I hear no song.

Scampi: That’s a separate debate.

Peter: Humph.

Scampi: Do you know what Caledonia is?

Peter: Scotland?

Scampi: Sometimes.

Peter: Yes.  And sometimes we call it “Scotland”.

Scampi: No, no.

Peter: No?

Scampi: No.

PREGNANT PAUSE.

Scampi: Sometimes it could mean something else.

Peter: I see.

Scampi: Such as the coal mines of Glace Bay.

Peter: In Nova Scotia?

Scampi: Not to be confused with New Caledonia.

Peter: I see.

Scampi: You’ll find that there aren’t too many happy songs about miners.

Peter: You are correct.  This is something that I have found.

Scampi: Really?

Peter: The hardships of life in the mines have been well-publicised.

Scampi: What?

Peter: I said –

Scampi: I know what you said.  You think that’s tacky?

Peter: That you heard what I said?  I think it is perhaps unusual.

Scampi: You think the hardships of life in the coal mines is tacky?

Peter: That, for example, is not what I said.

Scampi: It was the way you said it.

Peter: Oh?  What way was that?

Scampi: You’re the one who said it.  I’m sure you know how you said it.

Peter: There was nothing wrong with my diction.

Scampi: Diction, quite frankly, is the least of your troubles.

Peter: My troubles?

Scampi: Of course, that’s what they called it in Northern Ireland.  The Troubles.

Peter: Yes.

Scampi: What do you know?

Peter: Doubtless I know very little, in comparison to your majestic self.

Scampi: Ho ho.  Majestic!  Don’t mind if I do!

PETER PREENS CRABBILY IN THE WINDOW.

Scampi: Look at you.  You cobra.

Peter: I am demonstrating my feathers to best advantage.

Scampi: That’s evident.

Peter: [re: what Peter clearly just said] I would never say that.

Scampi: Sure.  The question is, for whose benefit is this occurring?

Peter: I am simply looking out the window.

Scampi: Oh, of course.  Now he looks out the window.

Peter: SIGHS.

Scampi: You’re like a serpent coquette, gyrating for the local snakecharmer.

Peter: Pardon me?

Scampi: Dancing around in your basket for all the market to see.

Peter: Ahem.

Scampi: Time to cross your eyes and go back to bed.

Peter: Are you saying that snakes cross their eyes?

Scampi: So, you think of yourself as a snake?

Peter: I don’t cross my eyes.  And I don’t believe it’s actually possible for a snake to cross its eyes.

Scampi: Aha!  So you are a snake!

Peter: That is a perversion of logic.

Scampi: Excessive vanity is the perversion of a healthy ego.

Peter: What?

Scampi: Sorry?

Peter: What does that even mean?

Scampi: Sorry?

Peter: I said, What does that mean?

Scampi: You don’t know what sorry means?  (Unsurprising.)

Peter: ARGH.

Scampi: Woah.

PAUSE.

Scampi: Well, there’s no need to get upset.

PETER’S HAIR STANDS UP ON END.

Scampi: You’re so punk rock.

Peter: I assure you, it is unintentional.

Scampi: You know what’s unintentional?

Peter: Do enlighten me.

Scampi: Participating in history.  This is unintentional.

Peter: How so?

Scampi: You have to do something intentional to not participate in history.  Tu t’en tires.  Or.  Tu t’en tire une balle.

Peter: I do not know what that means.

Scampi: Oh, naturally.

PAUSE.

Scampi: Do you believe that the Troubles are over?

Peter: In Ireland?  They are over.

Scampi: Technically.  Your troubles, however, are not.

Peter: Likely not.

Scampi: Yes.

PAUSE.

Scampi: You know, sometimes I look out at the sky and see birds in a vee formation.

Peter: Up at the sky.

Scampi: No.  Out.  In the direction of the horizon.

Peter: Ah.

Scampi: There they are, flapping all around.

Peter: This is a common activity for birds.

Scampi: Not penguins.

Peter: Or ostriches.

Scampi: Ostriches, Peter!

Peter: Yes?

Scampi: How ridiculous.  I’m talking about birds in flight.

Peter: Such as “not penguins”.

Scampi: Right.  I wonder if the birds have any idea of the sorts of longings they engender in terrestrial types such as myself.

Peter: Surely not.

Scampi: What are you, a bird-reader?

Peter: No.

Scampi: Flock psychology?  Cygnet Freud?

Peter: Stop that.

Scampi: Have you ever been to Caledonia?

Peter: [consulting a chart] New Caledonia?  The French-owned island in the – ?  Pacific.

Scampi: South-west Pacific.

Peter: There is no need to hyphenate.

Scampi: You know why they called it the Pacific?

Peter: Yes.

Scampi: Because it was so peaceful.

Peter: Yes, I knew that.

Scampi: Because it was so blue.  Like yourself.

Peter: I am not blue.

Scampi: Nor black, like a miner.

Peter: I do not have coal soot on my face.

Scampi: That is your good luck.

Peter: You may choose to see it that way.

Scampi: I do.  So you’ve never been to Caledonia.

Peter: No.

Scampi: Me neither.  This is a very sad song.

Peter: Yes.

Scampi: I thought you said you couldn’t hear it.

Peter: I couldn’t.