Scampi: Forfooth!
Peter: Mm.
Scampi: Forfooth! Haw haw.
Peter: I am not following.
Scampi: Get it?
Peter: Fourth hoof?
Scampi: On a tri-legged horse. Ha.
Peter: I see.
Scampi: No, no. “My fweete lady!”
Peter: Tweet?
Scampi: FWEET.
PETER STARES BLANKLY.
Scampi: See, the effs are esses. Get it?
Peter: No.
Scampi: In an old-fashioned song. I am being a classical text.
Peter: Oh, of course. A classical text.
Scampi: Look.
SCAMPI SPELLS IT OUT FOR POOR, SLOW PETER.
Peter: What are you saying about me?
Scampi: Nothing. I haven’t said a thing.
Peter: I suspect this is untrue.
Scampi: Suspect? Did you hear me say anything?
Peter: Not quite.
Scampi: Well then.
PAUSE.
Scampi: In the classical days, all the effs were esses.
Peter: Mm.
Scampi: I mean, the other way around. Are you even listening to me?
Peter: Yes. My attention is currently centred on your fascinating discourse.
Scampi: Thank you.
Peter: YAWNS.
Scampi: How rude.
PAUSE.
Scampi: Did you know, it’s polite to cover your gigantic maw when you yawrp like that?
Peter: Oh, do excuse me. You are, as usual, a beacon of social grace in the wild darkness of my neverending font of sloth.
Scampi: I certainly am.
PAUSE.
Scampi: Yes. Today I feel like a hundred pieces of myself. Like each of the leaves on the trees. Which are falling. The leaves are, I mean. The trees are not.
Peter: What trees?
Scampi: The trees in the park, of course.
Peter: Ah yes. They are not falling.
Scampi: No, they are not. Unless you’re planning to chop them down. I wouldn’t put it past you.
Peter: That was not a part of my plans.
Scampi: Really?
Peter: Really.
Scampi: So, you have plans?
Peter: What do you mean?
Scampi: You just said you did.
Peter: Did I?
Scampi: You said, “This was not part of my plans, to cut them parky trees down”.
Peter: Ahem. I do not believe those were my exact words.
Scampi: That was the meat of it.
Peter: Perhaps.
Scampi: So, you have plans. As you said yourself.
Peter: In an unspecific fashion, I suppose.
Scampi: What are you planning?
Peter: Uh.
Scampi: A coup d’état?
Peter: No.
Scampi: Oh, can I be in it?
Peter: I am not planning a coup.
Scampi: I would be great in it.
Peter: Doubtless.
Scampi: I could make all the posters. I am very competent in bubble and three-dimensional lettering techniques.
Peter: Competent in bubble?
Scampi: Bubble letters. They look like balloons.
Peter: Ah.
Scampi: As you well know.
PAUSE.
Scampi: Sometimes I have a great urge to stare up at the night sky.
Peter: Well, don’t let me stop you.
Scampi: From what?
Peter: Observing the dome of heaven.
Scampi: At night.
Peter: Yes.
Scampi: But it’s not night.
Peter: You are correct: it is not night.
Scampi: This makes it hard to see the stars.
Peter: You are chock-full of keen observations today.
Scampi: Who made you the big expert?
Peter: Pardon?
Scampi: Oh, nothing. What are you doing tonight?
Peter: I’m busy.
Scampi: Want to observe the stars through the fractal trees?
Peter: I believe this is a misuse of the word “fractal”.
Scampi: You would.
PAUSE.
Scampi: It’s kaleidoscopic, how I feel.
Peter: Perhaps you should sit down.
Scampi: Perhaps I can feel your heartbeat.
Peter: This is highly unlikely, from across the room.
Scampi: We aren’t in a room.
Peter: I thought we were.
Scampi: I don’t think we are.
Peter: I see.
Scampi: We are in a field.
Peter: This is implausible.
Scampi: A field of stones.
Peter: A quarry?
Scampi: How dark.
Peter: You have something against quarries?
Scampi: Don’t you? With a name like Peter.
Peter: No.
Scampi: What do you think the difference is, do you think?
Peter: I do.
Scampi: I mean the difference between the rocks being made and the rocks being broken.
Peter: [boomingly] Perhaps they are one and the same.
Scampi: There’s no need to narrate like that. Perhaps they are one and the same.
Peter: I was not disagreeing.
Scampi: Sure, sure. Like a broken plate.
Peter: I am like a broken plate?
Scampi: No, the mess is the same. The mess of the pieces on the kitchen floor, and the mess of the plate when it was whole.
Peter: Pottery is a messy business.
Scampi: Ceramics.
Peter: A skilled trade.
Scampi: This whole thing. It’s a messy business.
PAUSE.
Scampi: It’s a mess, Peter.
Peter: You seem agitated.
PAUSE.
Peter: Is it really necessary to stare like that?
Scampi: In fact, it is.
Radiofree Scampytail 