August, writers want to be loved
The challenge set HandD writers this month was ‘Will you still love me…?’ Take it wherever you like. And the results were impressive. We did indeed have reflections in Beatles mode, but we also had dramatic duologues, and a perfectly formed sonnet. Interestingly it was animals who suggested themselves to several members as in need of reassurance. ‘As the years went by you had less time for me. I spent long hours alone in my field … without even a donkey for company,’ reflected Gill’s abandoned pony. Paula’s duck was rueful about the mating habits of her species. ‘What’s love got to do with it?’ asks her rough ravisher. ‘Any Chris Packham wannabe knows that gang rape is the way Mallards procreate.’ Molly was breaking the news of the end of the affair – ‘…you are arrogant, self-centred, greedy and you lead a secret life, with long periods of absence, peculiar friendships, endless fights,’ with which she gave the cat his marching orders. Philippa’s protagonist asked ‘Would you still love me if I had horns... so big and sharp they stuck into you…when you snuggled up close. Reassurance was available: ‘Darling, of course I’d love you. But all little fauns have horns when they grow up you know Bambi?’
It was left to Tim and Tessa to speak of human love. Tim produced what he called a shopping list to challenge marital devotion. ‘Would you still love me if I … became an alcoholic… couldn’t stop interrupting you…became a convicted paedophile…ate all the cookies… criticised your driving, even once…? And if not, could we have a divorce now?’
And Tessa wrote a sonnet, as you do only if you have loved and studied English literature as Tessa has.
‘Would you still love me if I were old and sere,
If wrinkes lined my cheeks and ageing brow?
Would you will love me oh, my only dear,
Would you still love me then as you do now?
If I should live to four score years and ten
With all the traits of Jaques’ seventh age,
Toothless as well as tetchy now and then,
Would you still love me through this saddest stage
Of life? And if senility took hold,
As long as I still knew and trusted you,
Would you still love me, treasure me and fold
Me in your loving arms as now you do?
Of course you would! Your love is deep and true
And will endure whatever fate may do.’