You Are The Hero !
Remember all those gamebooks from back when we were boys ?
(And girls…though mainly boys.)
Remember how, on tenterhooks,
We’d have to make the choice
Of our turning left or turning right ?
Remember all the monsters and the ploys that we would fight ?
Remember all the dice we’d roll
To see if we would kill the troll ?
And prove our might ?
Remember all the traps upon the roads ?
And treasures that we’d prize ?
Remember finding clues and secret codes
If we chose wise ?
Remember flipping through the pages
On our quest to smash the mages ?
Turning to the paragraph with bated breath –
Would we find the one true path,
Or would we meet with death ?
Well, both, of course.
Ev’rybody cheated,
And nobody rolled dice.
(Not even would the girls obey.)
For nobody could force us how to play.
Whenever we would be defeated,
We would not think twice,
But just shrug and carry-on along our way.
We wouldn’t sigh when we were slain,
And start from chapter one again,
As laid down by the authors of these epic Middle Ages –
Instead, we’d keep our fingers in the pages,
Testing out each turn –
To see which would reward and which would burn.
And we were right to cheat so blatantly
When said and done –
For all the boys (and girls) agree
That gaming should be fun…
Ah, the good old five-fingered bookmark ! But they weren’t all fantasies…
Rhyming Couplets 