With Love, Or With Ruin

The Scene:

A hillside in Carmarthen.
The summer has grown a fever of flowers across the land, a slight breeze make them hicup like drunk elves.
Birds sweep around the clear blue sky and a stream bubbles on its way.
Two lovers sit in a clearing on the edge of a forgotten quarry. Behind them the mouth of a dis-used mine shaft, frozen in a forever yawn.

Tophatt Handcuff:

An unhappy feeling! Once the three feathers of Wales grew from my heart, now it pumps only blooded thorns.

Miss Lucy Unseen:

Why say you this to me?
The flowers on the hill still smile at you, the birds still come down from the Heavens to feed from your hand. Is this a lie?

Tophatt Handcuff (looking away)

No! But do not gamble on me, my heart is a very broken, a very senile toy.

Miss Lucy Unseen:

Do you hide tears? Or is self pity that shrouds your face?
If it is the former, I am confused and sorry but if the latter of my question rings true then why do we love?

Tophatt Handcuff (looking back into her eyes)

But for tears of joy these eyes are desert sands and I long ago discarded pity of any kind from my bones.
(takes her hand)
When first I found you, beautiful you, my soul fluttered and skipped into fantasy. Like God’s touch you shone and in an instant this heart became yours!

Miss Lucy Unseen:

As still it beats my prince.

Tophatt Handcuff (stroking her cheek)

Ah, such rose tinted skin! It even softens my fingernails.

Miss Lucy Unseen (pulling away)

Do not shoot hollow niceties at me until you have explained the ache in your soul! I thought unhappiness had long been banished from your mind, yet you speak as if black clouds haunt your dreams like beetles in a fog.

Tophatt Handcuff:

They did and now my dreams are lost. Let mr have your attention in the event it may clear your doubts.

(Lucy lays back on the soft grass to listen)

Tophatt Handcuff:

The day I fell for you was as blessed to me as the stars. The love I felt drugged my heart so deeply I was blinded from the truth of real romance, such was your presence with its potent fantasy effect. I had drank from no other well and in an instant I was husband material.
What I, in structured confusion is telling you dear Lucy, is for the two years we have shared I have hidden from utter commitment, perhaps even life, and now the time has come when I feel I must ask you to be wife, I fear you may drown the gentleman for who knows when the bitter rain will fall?

Miss Lucy Unseen:

Speak to me without riddle not like a caged bird! You say you suffer at our future?

(Tear falls from her eye)