Peter: Did they meet?
Scampi: Well.
Peter: I don’t recall them meeting.
Scampi: Very funny.
Peter: I really –
Scampi: I, Claudius.
Peter: No but I really do not know what you are speaking about.
Scampi: I am speaking about the aridity of the convo between St. Augustine and Plutarch.
Peter: Which they did not have.
[PAUSE.]
Peter: Wait, am I Plutarch?
Scampi: Ha! Ha, har. Oh. Ho.
Peter: [offended] What?
Scampi: Thinks he’s Plutarch!
Peter: Should you require reminding, you have called me Plutarch before. Numerous times.
Scampi: Oh ho, numerous.
Peter: Well, more than once.
Scampi: Need I so needfully remind you, there’s a great difference between perhaps being called Plutarch (Ploo-tark) and self-identifying as Plutarch. Like a lunatic. Loon attic.
Peter: [RUFFLED.]
Scampi: Why is it?
Peter: What?
Scampi: People are just awful, sometimes. So [CURSING] horrid.
Peter: What was that?
Scampi: Censorship. It’s my new thing.
Peter: Since when?
Scampi: Since never. I no longer plan to practise it.
Peter: I see.
Scampi: Yes well. I am only saying.
Peter: Ah yes. You and your ‘sayings’.
Scampi: Don’t take that tone with me. Har, har.
Peter: [SIGHS.]
Scampi: I have some things to say, you see.
Peter: So you claim.
Scampi: Can you imagine how terrible we are to each other?
Peter: Is this a pointed remark?
Scampi: Lucullus’ mother, you know, was notorious for her wild lifestyle.
Peter: Oh?
Scampi: Yes.
[PAUSE.]
Scampi: We are all a touch wild, I suppose.
Peter: Hm.
Scampi: A pack of insubordinate animals. How can one man trust another?
Peter: I trust my fellow-man.
Scampi: Oh, right.
Peter: I resent this antagonism.
Scampi: What antagonism?
Peter: You doubt the love I tender my brother?
Scampi: Oh yes, your estimable brother. Indeed.
Peter: There’s no need to hold humanity hostage to your mercurial moods.
Scampi: I blame the weather.
Peter: The weather, the Holy Roman Empire, the gender imbalance.
Scampi: Well yes. Have you understood me at last?
Peter: [EXASPERATED.]
Scampi: That’s exactly it, isn’t it?
Peter: Are you being facetious?
Scampi: No.
Peter: [suspicious] Oh.
Scampi: But it would be decent of people not to break each other’s hearts, sometimes.
Peter: Oh, this.
Scampi: This.
FOUR ALBATROSSES COAST BY, RIDING THE WIND LIKE A PACK OF NASCARS.
Scampi: Shall we walk?
Peter: Certainly.
Scampi: You can see the moss already. Coming up green.
Peter: Ahem.
Scampi: The chanterelles, the tubers.
Peter: Sshh. The woods.
Scampi: I know. There’s nothing wrong with aspiration, of course. Except in the areas of a) food intake; and b) height.
Peter: What? Height?
Scampi: No man is taller than a man.
Peter: I feel like that is one of those things that you say that does not mean anything.
Scampi: Well then, o ye of ickle faith. Parse it.
Peter: A truism?
Scampi: It wouldn’t kill you to think and feel at the same time, you know. In fact –
Peter: Facts!
Scampi: Don’t bark at me. Maybe you should brush up on your nautical terms instead of howling at the moon like this.
Peter: I am ‘up’ on my nautical terms, thank you.
Scampi: You’re welcome.
[PAUSE.]
Scampi: Tender: Nautical (of a ship) leaning or readily inclined to roll in response to the wind.
Peter: Certainly, certainly.
Scampi: Tender that to your brother.
Peter: Hm.
Scampi: The wind is blowing.
Peter: Yes.
Scampi: It will be a long night, I fear.
Peter: YAWNS.
Scampi: And the fog is rolling in.
Radiofree Scampytail 