Scampi: If I may, I’d like to bring the topic around.
Peter: Oh? What ails it?
Scampi: Har har. I’d like to bring the topic around to the Linnaean Society, of course.
Peter: Of course.
condensation
pt 119: TOUGH
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.
pt 144: THE WARSAW PACT
Scampi: Isn’t it funny to you how a map can look like a bloodstain?
Peter: What?
Scampi: You heard me.
Peter: Indeed.
Scampi: Well?
Peter: It is meet to point out that I heard the words, but was unable to glean their meaning. In this context.
Scampi: Oh, this is how we’re talking today?
Peter: Pardon me?
Scampi: I ain’t the Pope. I ain’t the state o’ the nation. No pardons dispensed here.
Peter: I think you may have misunderstood the term “State of the Nation”.
Scampi: I am a mixologist.
Peter: I see.
Scampi: Remember the Communist blob?
Peter: I believe that was ‘bloc’.
Scampi: Just a big red blob on a map. And now what?
Peter: Perhaps we should identify the appropriate cartographic terms before continuing.
Scampi: Nonsense. You never have any fun.
Peter: [pensively] No.
Scampi: See? Ghastly.
A GHOST STROLLS PAST, SELF-CONSCIOUSLY WRINGING ITS HANDS.
Scampi: What a world.
Peter: Wait, what’s going on here?
Scampi: I dunno. Nothing.
Peter: Did the power just go out?
Scampi: Who cares? That’s what I say.
Peter: You certainly do.
SCAMPI TOSSES A TEN-GALLON HAT IN THE AIR.
Scampi: Yeehaw!
Peter: My head. It spins.
Scampi: That’s not your normal sentence structure. Are you okay?
Peter: [dubiously] I suppose.
Scampi: Here we are, the kings of supposition. And no electric lightbulbs, to boot.
Peter: Yes.
Scampi: That could be cathartic. Electric lightbulb-booting.
Peter: There is no need for violence.
Scampi: What about violins?
Peter: Well, yes. Violins yes.
Scampi: A full string section, of course.
Peter: Yes.
Scampi: So you wouldn’t say, Ah history, the giant bloodstain?
Peter: I have never said such a thing.
Scampi: I have.
Peter: We are all aware of this.
Scampi: Good, good. This is an awareness program, after all.
PAUSE.
Scampi: Speaking of which, garrigue.
Peter: What’s that?
Scampi: Garrigue.
Peter: Oh?
Scampi: Do you know what that is?
Peter: Uh.
Scampi: Do you?
Peter: Not particularly.
Scampi: Scrub.
Peter: What?
Scampi: That’s what it is. Low-lying scrub. You know, like foliage. In the Mediterranean Basin.
Peter: Ah, the basin.
Scampi: Scrubs and shrubs. They change the taste of the air and the taste of the wine.
Peter: Ahem.
Scampi: A covering over the hills, running down to the sea.
Peter: I know what scrub is.
Scampi: One wouldn’t think so, to look at your neck.
Peter: I bristle at such remarks.
Scampi: I can see that.
PAUSE.
Scampi: I couldn’t get out of bed today.
Peter: Oh.
Scampi: Or perhaps I could. I can’t remember.
Peter: We all have beds. And difficulties.
Scampi: I suppose if this is a dream, I haven’t gotten out of bed yet. How shall I tell?
Peter: I thought we had abandoned this line of inquiry.
Scampi: You would say that, as a dream-figment. Trying to throw me off the scent.
Peter: Consciousness is not a children’s mystery novel.
Scampi: There’s no need to be so severe about everything. It’s not The Pilgrim’s Progress either, you know.
Peter: I am not a puritan.
Scampi: Don’t tell me. Tell them.
Peter: Who?
Scampi: I dunno.
Peter: Oh.
Scampi: You seem a trifle skittish.
Peter: [skittishly] I am not.
Scampi: Mm. It seems darker.
Peter: It?
Scampi: The world. The weather.
Peter: We are preparing for a healthy bout of condensation, I would say.
Scampi: I concur.
PAUSE.
Scampi: Will we ever be heroes, Peter?
Peter: Why would we want to be heroes?
Scampi: Why wouldn’t we?
pt 145: IT IS NO LONGER TRUE
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.
Radiofree Scampytail 