Scampi: Look at the sky! What a grisly fog.
Peter: The sky is grey.
Scampi: Grizzled. In sable silvered.
Peter: It is to be expected.
Scampi: Oh yeah.
PETER COORDINATES A SERIES OF PRIVATE MOMENTS WITH HIMSELF.
Scampi: What are you doing?
Peter: Reading.
Scampi: Oh.
PAUSE.
Scampi: I had the strangest dreams.
Peter: And you are ascribing this occurrence to the barometric pressure?
Scampi: Of course I ain’t! My comments on the grazing fog are separate from my comments on the strange dreams.
Peter: I see.
Scampi: Grazing fog.
Peter: Yes, grazing fog.
Scampi (expectantly): Yes!
Peter: Why are you looking at me like that?
Scampi: Nothing. Grazing.
Peter: You keep repeating this word.
Scampi: I know! It doesn’t make any sense.
Peter: Agreed.
Scampi: Like smouldering chunks of the petrified forest.
Peter: Yes. That is also nonsense.
Scampi: I dreamed I met a Galilean.
Peter: Pilate?
Scampi: Peter?
PAUSE.
Scampi: No, but really. How can there be a cherry that’s got no stone?
PAUSE.
Scampi: Well, seed, if you prefer.
Peter: I have no preference.
Scampi: Quel surprise. In my opinion, a cherry when it’s blooming is not a cherry.
Peter: A cherry tree?
Scampi: A cherry flower. The blossom on the tree. Is that a cherry to you?
Peter: In what sense?
Scampi: In the sense of a cherry. That you put in your mouth.
Peter: I would not put a cherry blossom in my mouth.
Scampi: Well, no. Although perhaps you should.
Peter: Excuse me?
Scampi: I can see it now! Peter with a mouthful of cherry blossoms.
Peter: Distasteful.
Scampi: Likely bitter. Let’s go try it out.
Peter: Pardon?
Scampi: Let’s fill up your mouth with cherry blossoms and see what happens.
Peter: No, thank you.
Scampi: You’re welcome! Let’s do it.
Peter: I regretfully decline.
Scampi: You liar. Regretfully nothing.
Peter: I dislike it when you accuse me of lying.
Scampi: I dislike it when you lie about your declinations.
Peter: What?
Scampi: Declensions! Anyway, a flower is not a fruit. I think we can agree on that.
Peter: What makes a fruit a fruit?
Scampi: It’s about the seeds and the juiciness and things. In biology.
Peter: Pardon me?
Scampi: The seeds. I mean, versus a berry.
Peter (suspiciously): Ah.
Scampi: If love was really a book, or a tale or whatever, then presumably it would end.
Peter: Unless it was the neverending story.
Scampi: The Neverending Story. Which ended, of course.
Peter: Yes.
Scampi: Milk and eggs, jam and bread.
Peter: A fine shopping list.
Scampi: Shopping list!
Peter: List of ingredients?
Scampi: Could be, could be.
PAUSE.
Scampi: Do you like amber?
Peter: Who?
Scampi: The, uh, the thing.
Peter: The substance?
Scampi: Oh, the substance. Hoity toity. Yes.
Peter: What do you mean, do I like it?
Scampi: That’s what I mean. Do you?
Peter: I hold nothing against it.
Scampi: Not even your own skin? A palm full of amber beads?
Peter: Uh.
Scampi: What is it made of? Do you know?
Peter: Amber is made from.
Scampi: Yes?
Peter: It is a, ahem.
Scampi: Do you know what it is, or don’t you?
Peter: I do.
Scampi: Well?
Peter: Resin.
Scampi: I knew that.
Peter: [intake of atmosphere]
Scampi: I was just wondering.
Peter: Amber can contain plant and animal detritus.
Scampi: Detritus? You mean corpses.
SCAMPI SHUDDERS.
Peter: Amber is a yellowish translucent fossilised resin deriving from extinct trees.
Scampi: Especially coniferous.
Peter: Yes.
Scampi: Showoff.
Peter: If you do not wish to hear an answer, please refrain from asking questions.
Scampi: Hey, chill out, bro.
Peter: I am not your brother.
Scampi: Of course you are, Peter. We are all brothers.
Peter: SIGHS.
Scampi: We all harden up like resin, I suppose.
PAUSE.
Peter: Are you suggesting that we contain fossilised insect life?
Scampi: Perhaps. It’s all very mysterious, really.
Peter: Unnecessarily so. We are not discussing an opaque material.
Scampi: Aren’t we?
Peter: Perhaps I have lost the train of thought.
Scampi: Probably ‘cause it left the platform an hour ago. Oklahoma-bound!
PAUSE.
Scampi: I take that back. Oklahoma makes me sad.
Peter: I see.
Scampi: Indian Territory. That’s what they called it, you know.
Peter: This is no longer what they call it.
Scampi: No. But the germ of tragedy remains.
Peter: As in seed?
Scampi: Or stone.
Peter: Or resin-bound arthropod?
Scampi: Something hard, anyway.
Radiofree Scampytail 