Episodes

pt 124: MUCH MORE FUN IN THE NEW HOUSE

/ loutre78 / Leave a comment

Scampi: “…..and as they made their way through the woods, the air grew darker and darker.”

SCAMPI SIPS A CUP OF TEA.

Scampi: “However, they bravely continued on their way, although the path through the underbrush was littered with gnarled roots and suspicious piles of leaves.  Suddenly,”

Peter: To whom are you speaking?

Scampi: Peter.  When did you get here?

Peter: Are you being wry?

Scampi: It’s story hour.  Surely you know this.

Peter: Uh.

Scampi: Oh, right.  You hate stories.

Peter: I don’t hate stories.

Scampi: Great.  Shall I keep reading this one?

Peter: No.

Scampi: Right.  Well, there you have it.

Peter: I do not hate stories.

Scampi: Of course not.

Peter: Don’t use that tone with me.

Scampi: Would you rather I used it against you?

Peter: You are in a toxic mood.

Scampi: That is incorrect.

Peter: A prime example!  You are being disagreeable.

Scampi: No.

Peter: I rest my case.

Scampi: You have no case.  You have chosen the putrid path of moral nonewhatsoeverness.

Peter: Excuse me?

Scampi: Oh, lord.

Peter: Yes, let us pray.

SCAMPI GUFFAWS.  PETER RECOILS.

Scampi: Oh lord, I don’t wanna eat my words.  Hail, hail!  Snowdrops too.  Almond.

Peter: Amen?

Scampi: Hallelooja!

PAUSE.

Peter: What is the ideal way to wrap a scarf about one’s neck for maximal warmth and coverage?

Scampi: Around and around.

Peter: Pardon?

Scampi: In a clockwise direction.  With the beating heart of time.

PETER SIGHS.

Scampi: That’s our Peter.  Gale-force.

Peter: Are you using the Beaufort Scale?

Scampi: (The Beaufort Wind Force Scale.)  Naturally.  Would you like to know some biographical facts about Mr. Beaufort?

Peter: Uh.

Scampi: Of course you would.  Sir Francis Beaufort, what country was he born in?

Peter: England.

Scampi: No.

Peter: Oh?

Scampi: Ireland.

Peter: In what year?

Scampi: Eighteen-thirty-six.

Peter: Really?

Scampi: No.  1774, upon the 27th day of May.

Peter: At which point Ireland was part of the British empire.

Scampi: This is a repulsive thing to boast about.

Peter: I was not boasting.

Scampi: Sure.  Anyhow, I’m telling you it’s amazing.

Peter: What is?

Scampi: It’s amazing how one poor man can run from a massacre into the jaws of moral ambiguity.

Peter: I do not follow this.

Scampi: Don’t you?

Peter: [irritably] What does this have to do with the Beaufort Scale?

Scampi: The Beaufort Wind Force Scale?

Peter: Yes.

Scampi: History has exhausted me.  You wouldn’t understand.

Peter: What are you saying?

Scampi: [patiently] History has exhausted me.  You wouldn’t understand.

SCAMPI HANDS PETER A TOME ON THE SUBJECT OF THE ST. BARTHOLOMEW’S DAY MASSACRE.  PETER DECLINES TO READ IT.

Peter: Anyhow.

SCAMPI THROWS AN EGG AT THE WALL.  IT BREAKS.

Peter: What was that?

Scampi: [sorrowfully] That was a waste of food.

Peter: I see.

Scampi: Yes.

PAUSE.

Scampi: Of course, when John Donne passed away, you didn’t say much.

Peter: Ahem.  I would point out that I was not alive when the poet passed.

Scampi: Fancy mouth.

Peter: Yes, fancymouth.  What are you talking about?

Scampi: Batter my heart, four-eyed Pete!

Peter: I do wear eye glasses.

Scampi: As the old saying goes, people with eyeglasses oughtn’t throw stones.

Peter: That is not how the saying goes.

Scampi: The world is asleep beneath the snow.  Or, more likely, the snow is asleep upon the living world.

PAUSE.

Scampi: What do you think of that?

Peter: People say this sort of thing sometimes.

Scampi: That’s right.

PAUSE.

Scampi: Sometimes, things come so slowly.  Like biscuits baking in an oven that’s off.

Peter: That is a long time.

Scampi: What?

Peter: Well, that would take a long time.  For the biscuits to cook.

Scampi: Southern biscuits?  Or English biscuits?

Peter: I don’t know.

Scampi: [snorts] English ones, obviously.  Since we’re on the topic.

Peter: Of time?

Scampi: Of sadness.  Over time.

Peter: What do you have against the English?

Scampi: Nothing at all.  I am going to the park.

Peter: Hyde Park?

Scampi: Perhaps.  I shall sing carols amid the winter snow.

Peter: Oh.

Scampi: “The branches grew thickly across the path.  They had to be pushed out of the way like humans.”

PETER COUGHS.

Scampi: Perhaps we’ll finish this story tomorrow.

Peter: Perhaps.

Scampi: Sir Beaufort was a brilliant man.

Peter: Well.

Scampi: He had an excellent work ethic.

Peter: This is admirable.

Scampi: Yes.  Instead of weeping all day long, he chose to apply himself scientifically.

Peter: A positive choice.

Scampi: Hats off to you, Sir B!

Peter: Indeed.

Scampi: Have you looked through this window?

Peter: No.

Scampi: I’ve made a hole in the frost.

Peter: Well done.

Scampi: Through it, you can see the entire world.  Look.

Peter: I see a dark street.

Scampi: Look more carefully.

pt 145: IT IS NO LONGER TRUE

/ loutre78 / Leave a comment
Scampi: I imagine St. Augustine and Plutarch to have this very dry sort of conversation.

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.

pt 62: LET US BE TRUE

/ loutre78 / Leave a comment

Scampi: Peter.

Peter: ‘Tis I.

Scampi: You know what Dan said?

Peter: I do not.

Scampi: [READS ALOUD.]

PAUSE.

Scampi: Can you imagine!  He said for me to mention this to you.

Peter: I believe Matthew Arnold said that.

Scampi: Ridiculous.

Peter: Pardon?

Scampi: Matthew Arnold has never asked me to mention anything.  To you or anyone else.

Peter: That quote.

Scampi: Oh.  Matthew Arnold wrote it, maybe.

Peter: There isn’t much maybe about it.

Scampi: Humph.

Peter: So, this is some sort of classical bullshit fest?

Scampi: Peter, how could you?

Peter: How could I what?

Scampi: But it’s so pretty.

Peter: We are all pretty.

Scampi: Well, well.  Mr Cocksure.

PAUSE.

Scampi: I can feel the sandy beach.  I can see the cliffs!

Peter: You can do a lot of things, it seems.

Scampi: Yeah, sure.  I can lick an icecreamcone if I’d of bought one last summer on the side of the highway.

Peter: Tense disagreement.

Scampi: That’s no lie.

Peter: Pardon me?

Scampi: Perhaps.  In time.  Hum.  Do you think Matthew Arnold accepts fan letters?

Peter: Are you having some massive hemorrhage that’s affecting your grasp of chronology?

Scampi: Says you.  Maybe I’m a mystic.

Peter: [hisses like an alkaline battery.]

Scampi: If I may say, your own existence is highly implausible.  Before you start twittering baroque minuets in my ear.

Peter: Before I what?

Scampi: It’s true, I’m not a mystic.  But the point is, I could be.  And you’d just be sitting there buzzing like a giant calculator.  Taking up a New York block with your messianic algorithms.

Peter: I would do no such thing.

Scampi: Don’t bet on it, mister.

Peter: I am not a betting man.

Scampi: That’s none of my business.  Save it for Blaise Pascal.

THUNDER.

Scampi: Woah.

PAUSE.

Scampi [whispering]: I’m just going to make some tea.

Peter: Whilst I shall glower to myself for full five minutes.

Scampi: And may I compliment you on your choice of ties?

Peter: [sighs] You may.

Scampi: Thank you.

Peter: SIGHS.

Scampi: We can see each other.  Can’t we?

Peter: Can we not?  Why wouldn’t we?

Scampi: If we had fully descended into darkness, would we think we could see each other?  When we couldn’t?

Peter: If it was dark enough, I don’t see how we could see anything.  We are not, ahem, bats.

Scampi: Maybe you aren’t.

Peter: Are you a bat?

Scampi: Why don’t you bounce some sound waves off me and find out?

Peter: I decline.

Scampi: Like a verb.  Sans action.  Oh, hum.  The tea is ready!

PAUSE.

Scampi: Here you are.

Peter: What were you laughing at?

Scampi: When?

Peter: What were you laughing at just now?

Scampi: I was just getting us some tea.  This is not a crime.

Peter: It is not.

Scampi:  Agreed.  A just conclusion, to be sure.

Peter: Ahem.

Scampi: I wonder if my memory of you would outlast you yourself.  Or the greyscale in the air between us.

Peter: I don’t know what that means.

Scampi: I do.

Peter: I have my doubts.

Scampi: Yes.  You parade them daily.

Peter: Excuse me.

Scampi: Explain yourself first.

Peter: There’s nothing to explain.

Scampi: Then there is nothing to excuse.

PAUSE.

Scampi: If you were an idea of mine, glowing in my head, you know, glittering like freezing rain or that type of thing.

Peter: If.

Scampi: Would you be bright enough to light your own way?

Peter: You’ve lost me.

Scampi: But in the leftover shine you could find your way back.

Peter: That’s not the sort of thing I understand.

Scampi: Yeah yeah.

Peter: In fact, I don’t think that’s the sort of thing anyone understands.

Scampi: Sour grapes.

Peter: I can’t hear you.  You’re mumbling.

Scampi: Oops.

Peter: You know why no one understands that sort of thing?

Scampi: I’m not listening.

Peter: Because it doesn’t make any sense.  That’s why.

Scampi: You pause to make dents?  Is that what you said?

Peter: No.

Scampi: I guess I’m not the only one who mumbles!  Around here.

PAUSE.

Scampi: Hee hee.  You should see yourself right now.

Peter: No thanks.

Scampi: Your incisors look like they’re ready to pop out of your face.  Canus petursus.

Peter: Spurious Latin.

Scampi: Don’t talk about Latin that way.

Peter: You know very well what I meant.

Scampi: Maybe I do.  Maybe I don’t.

Peter: No need to look so pleased with yourself.

Scampi: Why’s that?  Do you find it maddening?

A GULL ALIGHTS ON A POCKET OF AIR JUST OUTSIDE THE WINDOW.

Scampi: Say what you want about it.

Peter: About what?

Scampi: Clocks.

Peter: I do maintain, they move clockwise.

Scampi: We are the noisy armies and the detritus they leave behind and the quiet before they arrived.  All at once.

Peter: We who?

Scampi: And we are a couple of swallows.  A couple of sideswiping crustacea on the beach, blinking crabbily back and forth.

Peter: No doubt we are all these things.

Scampi: And because you are glowing in the dark—

Peter: I am doing no such thing.

Scampi: Then what am I using to read?  A pocket flashlight?

Peter: A POCKET FLASHLIGHT?  What?

Scampi: Certainly not.  Calm yourself.

PETER SIMMERS.

Scampi: There’s no way I can see this far for nothing.

pt 68: THE TRUMPETS FROM AFAR

/ loutre78 / Leave a comment

Scampi: I like to be near the water.

 

Peter: Mm.

 

Scampi: Did you know that? Peter?

 

Peter: Hm?

 

Scampi: The water. I like it.

 

Peter: Have some water. Help yourself.

 

Scampi: No, no. Like, the shoreline, like, a body of water.

 

Peter: Oh, heave ho.

 

Scampi: Sail away!

 

FOGHORN-LENGTH PAUSE.

 

Scampi: Right.

pt 58: PANACEA

/ loutre78 / Leave a comment

Scampi: Peter?  Peter!

Peter: Hm?

Scampi: Jeez.  Louise.

Peter: Pardon?

Scampi: Oh nothing.

Peter: What?  What was that?

Scampi: I’ll wait ‘til it’s done.

Peter: Sorry?

Scampi: [WAITS.]

Peter: Ah, that’s better.

Scampi: Well, yes and no.

Peter: Only I couldn’t hear you, you see.

Scampi: I see.

Peter: Above all that cello.

Scampi: It was a sight to be seen.

Peter: Pum pum.  Pum-pa-pum.

Scampi: Yes yes.  The virtuosity cannot be denied.

Peter: I have no wish to deny it.

Scampi: Nor do I.  I embrace the virtuosity of your cellist.

Peter: Thank you.

Scampi: A four-string miracle.  Angels in the snowbanks.  Et cetera.

Peter: Ah.

Scampi: I’m all nerves.

Peter: I won’t offer to make a fresh pot, then?

Scampi: Oh won’t you?

Peter: What?

Scampi: Nothing.

PAUSE.

Scampi: Nothing!

Peter: Have you quite taken leave of your senses?

Scampi: Yeah, yeah.

Peter: Inside voices.

Scampi: Are concealed their venomous intent.

Peter: Pardon me?

PAUSE.

Peter: Uh, it seems to me—

Scampi: Don’t start.

Peter: Could I finish?

Scampi: Look, I’ll be better.

Peter: Would you like to stretch your legs?

Scampi: I’ve never heard you say that before.

Peter: I’m trying new things.

Scampi: I see.  So you want to go for a stroll?

Peter: Well, it’s a possibility.

Scampi: Okay.

Peter: One of myriad possibilities, really.

Scampi: There are an astounding number of options.

Peter: There are.

Scampi: I suppose it would be hackneyed to discuss paralysis at this juncture.

Peter: Rather.

BIRDS PERFORM EXOTIC DANCES ON THE PORCH, BY THE WINDOW.

Scampi: Are they like, cold?  Do you think?

Peter: Who?

Scampi: You know, the birds.

Peter: Noooo.  I don’t think so.

Scampi: Oh.  Okay.

Peter: Anthropomorphising our animal friends is rarely a wise idea.

Scampi: I already knew that.

Peter: Good.

Scampi: You should get a birdbath.

Peter: I will consider it.

Scampi: In this same vein, if you will,

Peter: Oh really?

Scampi: Do you accept the like, premise, that under the snow the earth and all it’s earth-type stuff is sleeping?

Peter: Is that really a premise?

Scampi: It’s like one, anyway.  Is the earth asleep?

Peter: Figuratively?

Scampi: However you like.

Peter: Well, I wouldn’t put it that way.

Scampi: No.

PAUSE.

Scampi: Would you say that I am asleep?  Underneath the snow?

Peter: When?

Scampi: Now!  Now, Peter.

Peter: I would say that you are not.  I would say that you are neither.

Scampi: Figuratively?

Peter: You are pecking at my literal bones.

Scampi: Your painter’s loose.  You’re adrift in the damp seas.

Peter: An act of vandalism I do not appreciate.

Scampi: Surely I can see this.  Surely I should return this conversation to dry land.  Where you have cell phone reception.  Where dust gathers on your eyeglasses.

Peter: Ahem.

Scampi: You want to talk about sports teams?

Peter: Never.

Scampi: I know.  Thus we are stuck with the metaphorical balletdance.

Peter: I refuse to accept your axiom.

Scampi: [Curtsies.]

Peter: Pardon?

Scampi: Shall we?

Peter: Shall we what?

Scampi: Waltz.

Peter: I will do no such thing.

Scampi: Too late.

Peter: [Drowned out by cello.]

pt 54: A PAIR OF SHOES AND RAIN

/ loutre78 / Leave a comment

Scampi: Peter, what do you have to say about love?

 

Peter: Pardon me?

 

Scampi: Oh, cross that out.

 

Peter: LOVE.

 

Scampi: Or, you know what, just leave it.

 

Peter: Make up your mind.

 

Scampi: Well, I’m trying.

 

PAUSE.

 

Scampi: Don’t make those dubious noises at me.  Or, at any rate, what do you think about fishing trips?

 

Peter: What fishing trips?

 

Scampi: You know, like the ones you take with your dad.

 

Peter: I don’t take any fishing trips with my dad.

 

Scampi: Obviously.  But if you did.

 

Peter: I don’t.

 

Scampi: I know.  But some people do that kind of thing.

 

Peter: I don’t know anything about it.

 

Scampi: Yes you do.

 

Peter: Noo.

 

Scampi: It’s common knowledge, everyone knows that.

 

Peter: Everyone who?

 

Scampi: Stop being so preposterous.  I know you know.  (aside) Peter knows.  He does.

 

Peter: Who are you talking to?

 

Scampi: To whom.

 

Peter: What?

 

Scampi: Pardon?

 

Peter: SIGHS.

 

Scampi: So, you don’t want to talk about male bonding excursions.  That’s fine.  That leaves us with a) the weather and / or b) our foundering humanity.

 

Peter: Jesus Christ.

 

Scampi: Oh, right.  That’s c) religion.

 

Peter: It’s raining.

 

Scampi: I don’t believe you.

 

Peter: It is currently raining.

 

Scampi: What, right now?

 

Peter: Yes.  Currently.

 

Scampi: What a know-it-all you are.

 

PAUSE.

 

Scampi: You know what that is?

 

Peter: A pair of shoes.

 

Scampi: No, no.

 

Peter: It appears to be a pair of shoes.

 

Scampi: No, the rain.

 

Peter: Ah, so you’ve acknowledged it’s raining.

 

Scampi: Pathetic fallacy.  That’s what it is.

 

Peter: I prefer to think of it as precipitation.

 

Scampi: How precipitous!

 

Peter: Or condensation.

 

Scampi: How condescending!

 

Peter: Is this going to be all about your inability to accept science?

 

Scampi: Don’t tell fibs, Peter.  Fibbing forms no portion of the scientific method.

 

Peter: For the last time, stop calling me a liar.

 

Scampi: At the risk of unduly upsetting you, may I point out that this is very likely not the last time you will make that statement?

 

Peter: TAKES COMFORT IN HIS HAIRCUT.

 

Scampi: Your arms are all akimbo.  Maybe you should have a bath.

 

Peter: Yes.  Maybe.

 

Scampi: In any event, maybe we should focus on finding an umbrella.

 

Peter: Figuratively?

 

Scampi: If you like.

pt 105: CREAM

/ loutre78 / Leave a comment

Scampi: Would you want to be a guitar soloist?

Peter: No.

Scampi: Seriously?

Peter: I do not play the guitar.

Scampi: Well, there’s no debate about that.  Is it chestnut season?

Peter: When is that?

Scampi: You know.

Peter: I do not.

Scampi: Oh, I don’t know.

Peter: I see.

Scampi: In fact, I don’t even know what chestnut season is.  If it’s the season they blossom, or the season you eat them.

Peter: It is a mystery.

Scampi: No it isn’t.

Peter: Ah.

Scampi: I am icing my wounds.

Peter: Oh?

Scampi: I’m not, actually.

Peter: I see.

Scampi: I was just checking.

PAUSE.

Scampi: Have you seen the sky today?

Peter: Presumably.

Scampi: It’s the colour of iced cream.  Like a grey lake.

Peter: Ice cream?

Scampi: No, no.

Peter: That is what you said.

Scampi: Untrue.  I said iced cream.

Peter: And what, pray tell, is ICED cream?

Scampi: The name says it all.

Peter: Frozen cream?

Scampi: Perhaps.  “It’s a mystery.”

Peter: Don’t look at me like that.

Scampi: Why not?

Peter: SIGHS.

Scampi: Ok, let’s pretend we’re on a boat.

Peter: We are not on a boat.

Scampi: Incorrect.

Peter: This is a boat?

Scampi: Avast!

Peter: Excuse me?

Scampi: The milky air.  The grey waves.

Peter: That sounds like a fog.

Scampi: It is.

pt 85: A LITTLE BIT OF ATMOSPHERE

/ loutre78 / Leave a comment

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.

pt 89: PROXY

/ loutre78 / Leave a comment

Scampi: There are a couple of things to say.

Peter: Regarding?

Scampi: Yes.  Regarding the subject of beauty.

Peter: Oh, this.

Scampi: Correct.  This.

Peter: Beauty is subjective.

Scampi: Incorrect.  Do not fill my ear with stupidities.

Peter: Pardon me?

Scampi: Look, I’m just saying.  Don’t mind me.

Peter: You look utterly exhausted.

Scampi: No, I don’t.

Peter: SIGHS.

Scampi: Beauty is like luck.

Peter: Evasive?

Scampi: Ha!  You’re so cunning, Peter.

Peter: What?

Scampi: With your little jokes.

Peter: Oh.  Well.

Scampi: To continue.

Peter: To continue.

Scampi: It is a difficult thing, this moving along.

Peter: I suppose.

Scampi: One foot and then the next.

Peter: This is how we walk.

Scampi: Yes, but that’s what I’m saying.

Peter: Pardon?

Scampi: We walk, we walk.  One foot in front of the other.

Peter: Yes.

Scampi: Where the hell are we going?

Peter: That way.

Scampi: And more to the point, why aren’t we running?

pt 30: DEER ON THE TRACKS

/ loutre78 / Leave a comment

Scampi: I’m angry.

 

Peter: Mm.  Uninteresting.

 

Scampi: I went walking on the railroad tracks last week.

 

Peter: Uh-huh.

 

Scampi: I sat down in the middle of the tracks and had a picnic.  The sun was setting.

 

Peter: On the tracks?

 

Scampi: How poetic!  No, in the sky.

 

Peter: You sat down on the tracks?

 

Scampi: I don’t think it counts as a picnic if you’re standing up.

 

Peter: Ah.

 

Scampi: It was beautiful.  My mouth was full of apple.

 

[PAUSE.]

 

Right when the sun was turning into grey soup at the end of the view, I saw a deer.

 

Peter: On the tracks?

 

Scampi: Yeah on the tracks.  She looked at me with her big deer eye.

 

Peter: She?

 

Scampi: Yes.

 

Peter: What leads you to believe it was a she?

 

Scampi: Because the Yankee’s ballcap she had on her head was pink.  How do you think I knew?

 

Peter: Oh.

 

Scampi: I had the urge to lie down on the tracks, dig myself a groove like a fairy tale hero, and just let the train come.

 

[PETER INSPECTS HIS NAILS.]

 

Imagine all those commuters, flying over me like rubberband airplanes.

 

Peter: Eviscerating your cranium…..

 

Scampi: You wish.  Will you have some tea?

 

Peter: No.  Thank you.

 

Scampi: I think you’re wrong about me.

 

Peter: Pardon?

 

Scampi: I think, for your own convenience, you’ve made up things about me that aren’t true.

 

Peter: Oh?  What makes you think that?

 

Scampi: Because you wear them like a hooded sweatshirt.

 

Peter: That’s your opinion.

 

Scampi: I can see the strings dangling all the way down your front.