pt 115: RUNNING WITH THE HORSES

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Scampi: This discussion is about arms.  Arms are required.

Peter: Arms are very helpful.

Scampi: Yes, they are.  They are sometimes necessary.

Peter: Mm.

Scampi: The long arm of the law.  Ug.

Peter: The law is necessary?

Scampi: Not that kind of arms.  I was thinking of something else.

Peter: I see.

Scampi: You don’t see many occurrences of kilometres in song.  Have you noticed this?

Peter: Implicitly or explicitly?

Scampi: In the words.

Peter: The lyrics.

Scampi: That’s what I said.  You don’t hear anyone singing about his lover/home/bloodhound o so many kilometres away.

Peter: I do not.

Scampi: Well, that’s what I’m saying.

Peter: You believe that the music industry is prejudiced against the metric system?

Scampi: You make me sound like a conspiracy theorist.  I’m just pointing things out.

PAUSE.

Scampi: You look utterly exhausted.

Peter: I do?

Scampi: You do.

Peter: I am slightly tired.

Scampi: Well, that’s no way to be.

Peter: It is unnecessary to inform me of such gratuitous facts.

Scampi: Oh, you would say that.

Peter: Yes.

Scampi: Well, I think it’s very necessary.

Peter: I see.

Scampi: I bee.

Peter: Excuse me?

Scampi: Done!  You cee, I bee.  I-bis.  Sea biscuit.  Be-bop-a-lula.

Peter: Rawr.

Scampi: Are you growling?

Peter: Sh.

Scampi: Don’t sh me.  Sh yourself.  Sh-bang-whiz.  Popsicle face.

Peter: Could you please cease this infernal racket.

Scampi: Ha.  Racquet.

PAUSE.

Scampi: Would you like some toast?

Peter: No.

Scampi: Are you sure?

Peter: I do not want any toast.

Scampi: “I do not want any toast.”  Jeez.  Want a coffee?

PAUSE.

Scampi: I think you want a coffee.  I’m going to make you one.

Peter: You may do what you will.

Scampi: It certainly follows.

THE HOURS AND DAYS NIMBLY PERCOLATE.

Scampi: My arms are full of wildflowers.  I found them by the side of the road.

Peter: Achoo.

Scampi: Oh.

PAUSE.

Scampi: What’s your opinion on the ocean?

Peter: Ahem, the ocean.

Scampi: That’s what I said.

Peter: Yes.  The great bathtub covering this planet we call home.

Scampi: You don’t have to put on that voice, you know.

Peter: Oh?  And how would you prefer me to respond to your inane queries?

Scampi: Inane!

Peter: I know, it is a stretch.

Scampi: Oh, you.  What are you, afraid of the ocean or something?

Peter: I?

Scampi: Is that it?

Peter: No.

Scampi: It’s understandable.  Home of the GIANT SQUID and all that.

Peter: The ocean is home to numerous creatures, including cephalopods of elephantine proportions.

Scampi: I know.  Gargantuan, even.

Peter: Yes.

Scampi: It’s amazing, isn’t it?

Peter: We are blessed with the fecundity of the depths.

Scampi: Yeah.

LONELY SILENCE.

Scampi: I’m going to do a handstand.

Peter: (fearfully) Oh?

Scampi: Don’t look at me like that.  It’s not like I’m going to kick you in the face.

Peter: I should think not.

Scampi: Phew!

Peter: That was a handstand.

Scampi: Yes.  It was edifying.

Peter: How so?

Scampi: Wouldn’t you love to know?  Eh?

PAUSE.

Scampi: Love is a song that never ends.  Did you know that?

Peter: A delicate metaphor, to be sure.

Scampi: A cervine cartoon lullaby.

Peter: Supine?

Scampi: That, too.  Tell me, does it bother you when they call you Homunculus Rex?

Peter: No one calls me that.

Scampi: I just did.

Peter: Yes, you did.  Please stop.

Scampi: Oh, I see.  So you don’t like to be called Homunculus Rex, is that it?

Peter: It is.

Scampi: Okay.  I was just checking, you know.

Peter: I see.  Well, thank you for taking the time to check.

Scampi: You are most welcome O mighty sovereign of manlings!

Peter: SIGHS.

Scampi: GUFFAWS.

Peter: What a damned clatter.

Scampi: (philosophically) If you do, if you don’t.

PAUSE.

Scampi: Are you trying to circumscribe the world, or are you trying to give it a hug?

Peter: Pardon me?

Scampi: Which?

Peter: I am distinctly unaware of engaging in either of the above activities.

Scampi: Above?  Above what?  You’re above them?

Peter: No.

Scampi: How circumspect.

PAUSE.

Scampi: You know what this is called?

Peter: Nonsense?

Scampi: It’s called embracing the something or other.  Are you doing that?

Peter: (Whatever it might be.)

Scampi: Or are you, like, trying to poke the world in the stomach?

Peter: I have never poked anything in the stomach.

Scampi: Oh, right.  Except for our earth.

Peter: Ahem.

Scampi: You can hum and haw all you like.

Peter: Thank you.

Scampi: I’m just looking for some answers here.  Just snooping around the water cooler.

Peter: This is what you love best.

Scampi: What do you know about it?

Peter: Oh, nothing at all, I’m sure.

Scampi: Yeah, well.  Is that a new jacket?

Peter: No.

Scampi: You didn’t even look.

Peter: I did not have to look.  I know which jacket I am wearing at present.

Scampi: Snob.

Peter: And how does this make me a snob?

Scampi: It doesn’t.

Peter: I see.

Scampi: If you please, m’lord.

Peter: Now I’m an aristocrat?  Because I am not wearing a new jacket?

Scampi: Oho, convivialising with the peasantry!  That can’t be good for morale.

Peter: It is possibly an inopportune moment for this brand of horsing around.

Scampi: What?  You object to equine amusements?  I say!  Call in Lord Mulberry Face!  We must organise a symposium.

Peter: SIGHS.

Scampi: Hee hee.

PETER PERUSES LAST MONTH’S NEWS WITH STUDIED PRECISION.

Scampi: You certainly know how to turn a page with gusto.

Peter: Mm.

Scampi: If you get my drift.

Peter: What’s that?

Scampi: Don’t mind me.

Peter: I am attempting not to.

Scampi: Excellent, excellent.

PAUSE.

Peter: Perhaps it is time for me to go.

Scampi: Go?  Go where?  Why would you go somewhere?  Where are you going?

Peter: Ahem.

Scampi: It’s dark out.  You should wait for a break in traffic.

Peter: What traffic?

Scampi: I dunno.  It’s an expression.

Peter: I really should be going.

Scampi: Can I come?

Peter: No.

Scampi: Why?

Peter: Because.

Scampi: Why?

Peter: I am going to sleep.  I regret to inform you that you cannot join me in this venture.

Scampi: Says who?

Peter: That is the fact of the matter.

Scampi: That’s what you think.

Peter: Yes.

Scampi: Well, don’t go yet.  Wait five minutes.

Peter: All right.

pt 108: DECIDERIUS ERASMUS

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Scampi: Let’s go to Nassau.

Peter: What’s that?

Scampi: We will start in the Caribbean, reprovision in Madagascar, and then make our way to the Malabar Coast.

Peter: I see.

Scampi: Taking all the East India Shipping boats by surprise as we go.

Peter: You want to be a pirate.

Scampi: In the seventeenth century sense.

Peter: And what sense is that?

Scampi: A historical one.

Peter: I see.

Scampi: “The great affair is to move.”

Peter: Mm.

Scampi: Have you looked at the weathervane?

Peter: I have not seen a weathervane.

Scampi: How about the windsock?

Peter: What windsock?

Scampi: Well, what direction is the wind coming in from?

Peter: I do not know.

Scampi: It’s coming from the northwest.  Lightly.  Cat’s paws on the water.

Peter: You are certainly full of information today.

Scampi: I am.

PLUS TARD.

Scampi: I’m tired.

Peter: Yes.  I am tired also.

pt 101: TYPHUS & DANCING

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Scampi: I’m trying to make you a cup of coffee.

Peter: You may do as you wish.

Scampi: That’s not the point.

Peter: Ah.  Terribly sorry.

Scampi: What?

PAUSE.

Scampi: You are not.

Peter: Ah.

Scampi: Why are you making that noise?

Peter: It is hot.

Scampi: Yes.  Would you like me to mop your brow for you?

Peter:  Ugh.

Scampi: What?

Peter: Please.

Scampi: I have been dancing up a storm.

PAUSE.

Scampi: What do you think of that?

Peter: The statement appears to be plausible.

Scampi: You haven’t danced in two years.

Peter: Perhaps.

Scampi: I was learning awful things about dying of typhus.

Peter: Pardon?

Scampi: Gaol fever.  With a gee, in the olde style.

Peter: Perhaps I should open the window.

Scampi: That’s what they called it.  Carried around in the excretions of lice.

Peter: I see.

Scampi: Disgusting.

Peter: May I remind you that I did not bring up the subject?

Scampi: Well, I thought it was all just awful.

Peter: For what purpose were you investigating this disease?

Scampi: Investigating!  What do you think this is, Scotland Yard?

Peter: I do not.

Scampi: Well, you’re correct.  This is not Scotland Yard.

Peter: I will make a note of it.

Scampi: Good.

PAUSE.

Scampi: These poor people.  Peter.

Peter: What people?

Scampi: Wilting with fever and deliriums.

Peter: This occurred in the past.

Scampi: I know when this occurred.

PAUSE.

Scampi: You look drawn.

Peter: Oh?

Scampi: Like a charcoal sketch.

Peter: It is too hot.

Scampi: You know what else?

Peter: I do not.

Scampi: We are very lucky.

Peter: SIGHS.

Scampi: I could put ice in your coffee.

Peter: No thank you.

Scampi: Fine.

PAUSE.

Scampi: What?  What?

Peter: Could you please explain the presence of your head on my scapula?

Scampi: It’s heavy.

pt 50: WHAT THE FUTURE TEACHES

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Scampi: Peter?

Peter: Yes?

Scampi: I feel funny today.

Peter: Ah.  Funny peculiar?

Scampi: I think so.

Peter: Hm.

Scampi: I feel weird.

Peter: You are pretty odd.

Scampi: Weirder than normal.

Peter: Mm.

Scampi: Ominous.  That’s how I feel.

Peter: Well.  What do you think has caused this?  Too much auguring?

Scampi: Har har.  Why don’t you go find some bird guts of your own?  Then you can tell me.

Peter: I don’t kill things.

Scampi: Right.  Just implicitly.  You are subtlety incarnate.  Or what do they call it?  Passing the buck?

Peter: Are you delirious?

Scampi: I think I might be.

Peter: If you’re messing around, it isn’t very funny.

Scampi: I know.  It’s been real sunny today.

Peter: That doesn’t bother me.

Scampi: I know.

PAUSE.

Scampi: I feel, I dunno, it’s like, right on the edge between good and bad.

Peter: Mediocre?

Scampi: No, no.  The opposite.

Peter: Ah.

Scampi: Like, it could go bottomless pit, or grooming stablesful of angels.

Peter: You feel extreme.

Scampi: I’ll say.

Peter: Well, that’s hardly unusual.

Scampi: I know.  I know.

Peter: You often behave in rather extreme fashions.

Scampi: Yeah, but I don’t feel extreme.  Usually.

Peter: I wouldn’t know.

Scampi: No.  Are we going the right way?   Are we even doing the right thing?

Peter: I don’t know.  What do you mean?

Scampi: Dan would know.

Peter: Perhaps.

Scampi: I feel like Dan would know.

Peter: If we’re headed in the right direction?

Scampi: Yeah.

Peter: I have felt that way before.

Scampi: I think Dan has that effect.  Sometimes.

Peter: Yes.

Scampi: The sky is phenomenal today.

Peter: In what sense?

Scampi: It just seems like more of a phenomenon than usual.  You know?

Peter: Mm.

Scampi: Like, what the hell is holding that shit up?

Peter: Atlas?

Scampi: Humph.

Peter: Don’t ask a classical question unless you want a classical answer.  I always say.

Scampi: I’ve never heard you say that once in my life.

Peter: Incorrect.

Scampi: Well, I’ve never heard you say that more than once.  And never before today.

Peter:  Perhaps.

Scampi: Anyway, how did you know I didn’t mean, What’s holding that shit up, like, What’s taking it so long?

Peter: Pardon me?

Scampi:  It’s an idiom thing.  Okay?

Peter: You do look a little flushed.

Scampi: I do?

Peter: Yes.

Scampi: Hum.

PETER FIRES OFF A SIDELONG GLANCE, WITH AN UNUSUAL LEVEL OF EFFICIENCY.

Scampi: The sky is entirely a mystery.  Today.  And on an assortment of other days.  Here and there.  Over time.

Peter: Okay.

Scampi: Do you know what I mean?

Peter: Probably not.

Scampi: Can you tell me about the Fibonacci sequence?

Peter: Possibly.  What do you wish to know about it?

Scampi: I don’t know.  It makes me uncomfortable.

Peter: Well, maybe that’s the problem.

Scampi: Maybe.

Peter: How could the Fibonacci sequence make you uncomfortable?

Scampi: It gets me all queasy.  I try to focus on the horizon and then my legs give way.

Peter: It happens.

Scampi: I know it does.

PAUSE.

Scampi: I mean, look at us, riding off into the sunset.  Meanwhile, I feel like I don’t even know the first thing about like, biology.  Ribosomes, cytoplasm, et cetera.  Mitochondria.  What are those guys even doing?  Chlorophyll.  The colour of light refracted.  Do you even know what colour that is?

Peter: This is certainly a unique take on science.

Scampi: Well, thanks.

Peter: Mm.

Scampi: I don’t know how to say what I am trying to say.

Peter: That much is clear.

Scampi: Really?

Peter: Rather.

Scampi:  Oh.  That’s a relief I guess.

PAUSE.

Scampi: I’m glad you came with me.

Peter: Where?

Scampi: Here.

Peter: Ok.

Scampi: I like to have a partner in crime.

Peter: Crime is often inappropriate.

Scampi: So is duplicity.

Peter: Yes.

Scampi: I like to think that it could be us.

Peter:  It what?

Scampi: The sky.  I like to think that perhaps that’s why the sky is still standing upright way over that ridge.

Peter: Why’s that?

Scampi: Because we’re chasing it.

Peter: Ah.  So the sky is expecting us?

Scampi: Naturally.  Let’s not be late.

pt 124: MUCH MORE FUN IN THE NEW HOUSE

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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.