Peter Pan and Me

CHAPTER 24: PAN-ESIA

"It's begun a long time ago," Seth answered Peter Pan back and thrust
his sword at Peter's bare breast.

But Peter would not have being stabbed. He flew backwards and yelled,
"Have at thee!" Seth had to stretch across the bed, my under his sword
as Peter clanged against it. Crossed swords. Peter smiled across from
Seth and raised his eyebrows, "I live for this!"

"Try dying for it!" Seth swung his sword away from Peter's and around,
nearly hitting my sleeping side. Peter met it with an expert flip of his
wrist and he smiled again at Seth.

They clanged against each other's swords neither gaining a foothold.
Every move was met. Every thrust, every near slice, every feign and
swing. Countered by the other. They fought...two guys fighting over me,
literally. The swords made well like those things at wedding ceremonies,
a giant vee overhead, over me. This would be all I would get: I'll never
get married unless it's to...whatshisname? Peter? The arc of swords made
a tent over my body. The fight went on.

"That all you got?" Peter held Seth's sword at bay, "Pity you have to
turn old."

Seth bit his lip, "But at least I...am not afraid to..."

"Me? Afraid?" Peter's face broke a bit for he knew someplace he was.
But of what he didn't know.

Seth put a hand out and another fishing pole flew to his other hand,
changing to a sword before it even hit his palm. He thrust it at Peter
who was shocked at this move. Peter met it with his sword and then
clanged back to the other sword. I was on my side, curled up sleeping.
Seth leapt over the bed and me to Peter's side and Peter used his sword
to hold Seth's left arm sword upward and he grabbed Seth's right arm to
keep it at bay. Seth was taller and more powerful though and he twisted
free, turned his whole body and came clanging both swords at Peter, who
ducked and came up to Seth's side and elbowed Seth there, Seth fell
forward onto the bed and saw my sleeping, now snoring face, eyes shut. He
blinked and smiled. Peter thrust his sword down and missed as Seth ducked
under the bed side and the sword Peter stuck, hit the bed near my head.
Peter's eyes went wide and then he showed fear and anger. He turned. Seth
was pointing both swords up at Peter. Peter flew up and the swords nearly
hit his crotch. He went wide eyed. Now Hook once used this unfairness
too. And Peter was shocked at it. Every child when confronted by their
first unfairness sees it as a shock and then gets over it and is reminded
of it in later encounters. Not so Peter. Peter, to him, every unfairness
is the first unfairness. Hook's biting him, Kickai sticking his foot, all
forgotten as the first unfair nesses. Thus, he was shocked when Seth
fought unfair and not just in this move. Seth's swords brushed Peter's
right upper leg and scarred him there. "First blood!"

"Last blood is what counts! As for first, it spurs me on!" Peter yelled
and from the roof, attacked downward. He found his sword met with Seth's
two swords, Seth then moving the other one to the right, to try for
Peter's neck. Peter kicked Seth's face and hit his jaw and sent Seth
flying over the bed head first and legs rolling. As a tumble Seth stood
again on the other side of the bed. Peter landed on the opposite side
near me and checked me, "Chase, wake up! Wake up!" As he bent, Seth
raised one sword over Peter's head (Seth's left hand) and the other
(Seth's right hand) he began to drive at Peter's belly from on low, level
with the bed. Peter's stomach was now bent inward as he huffed to me.

I rolled over and hit Seth's right forearm that sported the hand that
held the lower sword, diverting it's point, unknowingly. Peter gasped
out loud as he saw the point near his left hip and it scraped there
anyway, drawing more blood. His sword met the one over his head and Seth
was smiling now. Peter pressed against it and smacked his other hand as a
fist against Seth's right bicep. He struggled to reach the hand to grab
the sword there while using his own sword to smack against the sword in
Seth's left hand. He made sounds like strength sounds issuing forth and
like a little boy struggling against an unfair, stronger bodied opponent.
With swords met, Peter flipped feet up to the roof and he flipped totally
over Seth's head, feet arching down into Seth's back, sending Seth
forward into the bedside, hitting his legs and knocking Seth to the bed,
head on the bed, near my own body, and legs buckling. Peter continued his
arch and landed on Seth's legs, just above where upper and lower leg met,
using his feet to crash the knees in and make Seth fall. Peter leveled
his sword from above and put the point at Seth's lower back. As Seth
tried to pull himself up, Peter thought about thrusting the sword into
the bare, muscled vee back.

"I don't stab in the back!" Peter kicked down and landed on Seth's back
with his bare feet and floored Seth some more, making Seth's jaw hit the
bed side and collapsing downward. "I don't kill when someone is facing
their back to me! I turn them over!" Peter flew up a bit and began to
use his right foot to turn Seth over, foot to his right hip and forcing.
Peter making little boy struggle sounds.

Seth's eyes darted back and forth. The pupils turned red. His left hand
had dropped his sword and reached under the bed for a ceremonial
sacrificial knife there. He grabbed the hilt as though it were a sexual
object. Instead of being forced over the way Peter was trying to force
him over, Seth turned the other way round and in the same move, sprouted
red leathery wings, lifting him and Peter on top of his him upward.
Peter's legs were swished aside as Peter looked at Seth's wings and lift,
wide eyed in shock and horror, which quickly turned to that of awe,
amazement, and that of fun and bloodlust, all in his facial expressions.
Peter gasped, "How wonderful! Worthy opponent!" At this second, Seth
thrust the knife upward and lifted vertically, kicking Peter fully off
him. Peter flew up horizontally and missed the thrust. Seth flung the
sword in his right hand and Peter's sword met it but the knife flashed
again and Peter had to angle himself half vertically. He looked down as
he met the sword. The knife had made a long slit from lower rib to lower
rib across his abs above his nice outtie innie navel. He was shocked
again.

"Wish I could say the same!" Seth laughed at him, wings flapping, red
demonic from hell.

"Aw come one!" Peter kicked upward, flipping again, feet meeting Seth's
face and head below. He grabbed Seth's trunk from below, his hands on
Seth's legs and hips in no time, sword in hand still. He clanged the
sword against Seth's side, like a vibrating string instrument of music.
Seth vibrated. "I'm good!"

Seth vibrated and his wings went in and he fell from the air to the other
side of the bed. Peter flew at him, hands and head still on the bottom of
his body, his feet in the air, toward the roof. Peter grabbed his
shoulders and shoved. Seth hit the wall and face. Peter hovered, holding
his sword. Then he flew backward to hit the wall with his feet now and
shove off as Seth turned. Seth turned and saw Peter coming at him. He
flung the knife at Peter but Peter laughing hit it aside and continued
his sword flight at Seth, his sword pointing at Seth's belly, for he was
sure this thing had no heart for which to prick. Seth moved aside and
raised his sword to hit Peter but his reach was too far and Peter lowered
himself, horizontally and as his sword met rock wall to make electric
shocks, Seth's forearm hit his side as Seth tried to use his sword to hit
Peter. The sword was too far up but the arm made contact and hurt. Peter
rolled to his side and used his free hand to punch Seth in the chest and
this knocked him back. But Peter was hurt too. He flew to the other side
of the bed and looked for another sword. He found nothing. He looked over
at Seth.

Seth's face was one of pure anger and hate. He walked, feet on ground
now, slowly toward the bed. Holding his sword like a snake of which he
was comfortable with, like a sexual orifice that he wanted to conquer. It
made Peter uncomfortable. "Very well, you are good. I admit that much.
But not good enough. You fight fair."

Peter stuck out his chest, "And proud of it!"

"Pride cometh before a fall," Seth said, quoting the Bible.

Peter pointed his sword over the bed right at Seth again, "Yeah pretty
boy, YOURS!"

Seth raised his sword but his eyes darted down to the bed. He put the
sword to my bare belly. Peter once more went wide eyed, "Bad form!"

"Maybe so," Seth said, "But game, set and match. You stop or I slay the
boy you love. Yes, I know he loves you and you love him. But not anymore.
He barely remembers you. You may still love him but he...well, if he even
sees you when he wakes, that in and of itself would be a miracle. But
it's not gonna happen."

Peter gulped, "I....you would do that?" More unfairness. And more of the
type that Peter thought it was the first unfairness he ever saw.

Seth, in answer, pressed the sword into my flesh and moved it, sliding it
from near the navel to over the ridge to in the navel and pressing
further. I was surprised this did not wake me up. "You are selfish Peter
Pan. You fight because you like it. Not because you want to save him.
It's all for you."

"You're wrong!" Peter yelled. "I ..."

Sneering Seth said, "Love, what good is it? It makes you lose."

"I'm not afraid to lose but if I do, what will you do to him?"

"He shall live. I cannot control his will, only his senses for a time."
Seth smiled, "So which is it to be? Are you afraid to die?"

"Afraid? I? Me? Naw," Peter faked a laugh, "To die would be an awfully
big adventure. And why not? I've had all the other adventures I could fit
into a life time."

"No, you have not," Seth said, "But look at you. I threaten the one you
love. The one you say you love and do you immediately drop your sword?
No. No, you do not. You are no different from me. It's yourself you think
about most. I hold a sword to your lover's bowels and you still laugh and
make idle chit chat."

"The chit chat's all yours!" Peter said with hate of his own, "Like most
adults, you talk and talk and talk, blah blah blah!"

"You do have more adventures ahead of you alive not dead but that is not
why you hesitate. The real reason you do not want to grow up, grow old is
because...you fear...wait for it...." Seth laughed and lowered his
head to my ear, "death," he whispered, "He fears death. The great Peter
Pan doesn't fear old age, he fears what comes after it!"

Peter looked, "Let's get this over with, foul demon from hell's maw!"

Seth looked at Peter's sword. Peter couldn't part with it. He looked at
it. Seth laughed and his jiggling from that wiggled the sword in my
navel. I made a sound, stirred. "This is my land now. It never was
yours...that's why it's called Never land."

Peter tossed his own sword down, "Look are you gonna stab or talk me to
death?"

A flash. Peter's belly button was totally filled with the point of Seth's
sword.

Peter looked down at it, perpendicular as it was to his navel, "oh."
Seth had quickly moved his sword from my belly to Peter's and stabbed
inward. Now Seth moved closer, leaning over me, his own bare lower belly
touching my own, me unaware of it. Unless in my dreams...

Seth moved his elbow and this move made the sword go into Peter's navel
more and more until it popped through Peter's stomach wall and delved in
deeper. Peter gasped, "Owahhhhhhh! Ow! Ahhh!"
Seth smiled and coldly looked Peter in the eyes. Seth stood on the bed
and leveled the sword at an angle and stabbed down. The point popped out
Peter's back. Seth jumped off the bed to face Peter now and leveled the
sword straight on in again and drove it in up to the hilt. Peter looked
up and then looked at Seth and then looked down at his own stomach. "Oh
death where is thy sting," he said.

"Don't want you go to too fast," Seth said, "You were afraid of
death...that's why you never grew up."

"Just finish me," Peter gasped and looked sideways, "And keep your word
about him," he said slowly. He looked at me, Chase, on the bed and his
eyes watered.

Seth tore a bit but didn't want his sword to leave the navel area. Seth
sneered, "Does it hurt that much?"

"Not the sword, that I'll....ughhh....I'll never see...puhhhh...see him
again...." But the sword did hurt too. Burning, cutting.

"Poor baby!" Seth drove the hilt up hard to Peter's belly, mangling. He
held it there for 30 seconds.

"So this iskkkk what...what if eeek...feels like." Peter wondered
what Seth was doing. When Seth would remove the sword. He waited for it.
His hands went behind Seth's back and held him to him. Peter swallowed,
looked at me as long as he could. Seth in one fast move withdrew the
sword and held it back, his face in Peter's. He put his lips to Peter's
and kissed as Peter's lips made an O in pain. Something stuck into
Peter's mouth from Seth's. His tongue? Peter put his hands on Seth's
chest and pushed Seth off. Peter tore out of the door and half flew,
half ran out and up the pit to the beach. He left the beach and landed on
sore feet. He walked through the forest. In a daze. The night seemed to
be breaking up. There was some daylight but it was overcast morning. The
night was fading. The birds were back. He smiled up at them. Peter's eyes
filled with tears. "Death is an awfully grand adventure. I hope I am up
to it." He fell on his belly and it hurt. He held it. He rolled over to
see his wonderful birds and leaves and trees all around him. He shook.
"So cold, mother, so cold. Wendy, so cold." He shook some more. He held
his stomach. With both hands.

His body wanted to stop and it did. Then it shook some more
uncontrollably. He was not sure he liked not being in control. He
couldn't control what was happening from the pain. As it spread from
navel to other areas, right on through to the back and from there to
other areas. He shook again. To touch Chase's hair again. To feel his
skin. To stroke his jawline. Wanted.

He held the ground a bit later and thrust his hips up to bear the pain,
screeching in pain as a little boy would, for deep down, although he
looked 15 or so, he was really a little boy. Making a thrill of dying. A
prolonged death scene something little boys loved doing once they
accustomed themselves to the fact that they were stuck playing someone
who got it instead of who gave it, death and blood and killing that is.
Boys liked overdoing death scenes especially while playing cowboy and
Indians or pirates and Vikings or whatever. There was throbbing in and
around the blade wound. But the throbbing that just started was to the
sides of the wound and he could not control it. The throbs surrounded the
real pain hole, the real pain was the tunnel of air that Seth's sword
made. Things were moving that he could not control. Peter wished he were
half acting but he wasn't. He felt things he never did before. "Is this
death?" Then he made no noise after a noisy messy death. All was still
after the worst was over and the mess cooled. His body cooled. The forest
seemed to forget him. Instead of getting worse, the weather became
milder, brighter, the sun came out from the clouds and rainbows and rays
of light sported through. Rays glistened at Peter's smooth body. His
hands, after all went to his stomach, but now fell lifeless. Rustling
leaves. Other leaves blew over his body, bristling the skin. The forest
seemed to be forgetting him, adjusting to his death. He was still, Peter
Pan was dead and no one knew. No one.

Except Seth. Who laughed and laughed.

I stretched out in bed and made sounds of awakening. I was coming to
life. I felt good. Tingling all over but good. Rays of light somehow
came into the pit cave and I pushed myself to life. I stretched some
more, feet off the bottom of the bed. "Peter?" I stood up. "Funny. Who's
that? That I would call out his name?" I got off the bed and to my feet.
I felt shaky. I nearly pass out and put my hand to the rocky wall. I
stumble but I land against the book shelf, one of the book shelves. My
head hits a book. It has the name on it PETER PAN. "Huh? Mmmmm." I
smiled. "I haven't read this in years." I open the book but I see it is
not written by JM Barrie.

I see it is called NEVERLAND: THE EARLY ADVENTURES OF PETER PAN. Peter
friends with a...a pirate? Captain Bligh? Well, they did get Peter down
right anyway, other than his swimming with clothes on, even with Tiger
Lily Peter would have gone completely naked. Other than that it seemed to
get things pretty much right except for the actual de-handing of Captain
Hook. Sigh. Not bad. "Let's see what other Peter Pan fairy tales are
here?" You see, at this time, I did not know Peter Pan was real. PETER
PAN AND THE ONLY CHILDREN. Hmmm. After Wendy. Before me? Before....
"What kind of a thought was that?" I shrugged. Hmm. They have a lot of
action just like the other book. And violence. Nothing new with that. An
underwater city of children? Is that what this is about? And a prone and
naked Peter at the mercy of the pirates and Hook back...was rather a hot
image. I coughed. It was well written if not well plotted. One thing that
stuck in my throat, like Hook's own hook in his neck in this story was
that...wasn't that there were Lost Girls or girls aplenty in this
story...it was the truly awful lie that Hook was...I dare not even write
it...Hook was...Peter's father! I tossed the book onto the sandy floor.
"Ugghh!" I looked some more. "Are all these books about Peter Pan? I
mean I loved that book and sorta hated the Disney movie but I would like
to read....something else..." Here side by side were two books. AFTER
THE RAIN a new adventure for Peter Pan. And a promise of a sequel,
PETER'S FIRST CHRISTMAS. Well that happened a long time ago, I thought.
"What the hell am I thinking about? Peter's just a myth, a legend, a
fairy..." I saw next to AFTER THE RAIN another book called simply HOOK.
That must be boring if it's just about Captain Hook. In both books, Peter
decides not to grow up! In the first, Peter actually leaves Neverland for
a girl! EEEEK! "Yeah like that would happen." In HOOK, a mess of a
story, Peter is actually an old man. And hairy at that! And Tink is full
size? I put these back on the shelves as if holding them would make me
ill. And they did. I teetered. Could I deal with any more of these
horrors? Another was indeed a horror story where Peter was evil and
killing "Lost Boys" near and around an amusement park. Another was simply
a tale of twisted 21 year old who kidnaped a black girl and let another
girl who loved him, Tink, die of an overdose. I wanted to cry. What were
they doing to my favorite childhood story? And hero. Others were less
offensive. Tales of a red-haired Peter Pan and a redhaired Wendy and her
brothers. Sorta Disney spinoffs. PETER TO THE RESCUE, HOOK AND PETER,
PETER PAN IN TINK AND THE PIRATES, which is a strange title if you think
about it. There was even a Spanish book about a bleach blond Pan and his
time before Wendy with other girls and in the Kensington Gardens. These
were fairly tame affairs. PETER TO THE RESCUE and WHERE WERE WENDY'S
BROTHERS were simply the same story told differently. Others related the
same story about the journey of the Darlings to Neverland and Hook's
demise or in some sacrilegious ones, Hook's near demise, for Hook was
told to have escaped the croc in more than one book. Even Barrie had Hook
escape at one point, in one of the early plays, Hook gets away to taunt
Peter and Wendy after they decide to live in the Gardens in her Little
House, now transplanted to the London...or rather England's Kensington
Gardens. Tink I think had to turn all the boys and girls into harlequins
or something to make them think they were Peter and in one version I
swore I read a long time ago, Tink made the boys all look like Peter and
the girls all look like Wendy to confuse Hook and Smee, who were now some
kind of truant officers. I kid you not. Hook is re-devoured by the croc,
waving for Peter to throw him cards or something. Fortunately Barrie did
not like this, his own ending. In the end, Peter stays with Wendy in the
house and they live happily ever after. You would think that that would
have been a satisfying ending for all. But not for me. Somehow the
tragedy of their separation better exemplified the sides they were on.
The opposing sides. She wanted to love and feel and grow up and find out
what else there was. He wanted to keep the child in him young and happy
and fun and carefree, a loose spirit, free to roam the universes, devoid
of care and concern and obligations. Which would you choose? Anyway, I
liked that Peter didn't stay with her, for she abandoned him. And it left
him open to be with another...What funny thoughts I was having about this
fake, mythological hero. Why?

There was one group of books, a spinoff from a cartoon on TV that seemed
lively to the spirit of PETER PAN, PETER PAN AND THE PIRATES from FOX.
Peter looked different, black hair or brown hair and his eyes changed
color from blue to brown but that was not unlike the real Peter. Peter
often, at will, made his hair and eyes change color, but he normally
settled on the blond thing and blue eyes. What? How the fuck did I know
that? These had some 70 plus adventures, some in comic form, some in
text, some in a mixture. They were quite good. And adventures I knew to
be true were related. "True?" I put these back gently. "True?" Hair
often tied back in ponytail. I blinked. How had I come here? To this
island. Shipwreck? Modern day pirates? I seem to recall our boat being
attacked by, yes, modern day pirates. Is that possible? What were they
after? Drug money? It was like that movie THE ISLAND, where the boy of
a man, Michael Caine played the man I think, and oh that boy was such a
cutie. The boy was sorta taken over by the pirates who bent his will and
made him kill. I shook my head. I had to survive. I had no time for
pirates and island adventures. I needed to eat but oddly enough I was not
hungry. How did that one, what was his name? Seth? How did he manage to
save all these books?

I found other books. I didn't like them. They made Peter a demon. A
devil. Who manipulated all around him and who killed lost boys and
innocent pirates alike. If someone disagreed with him, he slew them,
violently and slowly at times. One was called PETER PAN, THE SON OF
SATAN. Born of the god Pan, who be evil. What trash. I blinked again and
threw these to the floor. I sat down on the bed, depressed. "Something's
wrong." I swallowed. I could not put my finger on it. Something was
very wrong. I sprang up and made a move to jump up out of the hole and
I....fell onto my butt. What kind of move was that? I felt as though I
could fly or should have been able to. Was I mad? Insane? Filled with
rage? I laughed. I moved to the opening and found my way up the slope
that made the pit. My bare feet filled with sand and I struggled upward
until finally I found the cave exit and the beach without.

I had missed one book not about PETER PAN, not directly anyhow. It was
the book that drew me here, THE NEVER ENDING STORY.

The gray skies were clearing. It was becoming a nice day. The clouds were
moving fast and the wind was dying down. It was a gentle warm wind. I
wanted away from the coast, to forget the water that stranded me here. I
moved toward the jungle. "Seth? Where are you?" I moved through the
quietness of the jungle. Nothing but the wild bird calls that echoed
throughout. Gentle calls that soothed my being. Singing to someone. Or
were they in mourning? I began to pick at leaves on trees and bushes
nearby as I aimlessly wandered the jungle, which was dense in these
parts. I was thinking but I wasn't. My mind seemed in a fog as thick as
the forest around me. My feet felt warm against the leaf covered ground.
A large Neverbird watched me from a river. Cooing surrounded me. It was
quite nice. That was a clearing ahead. I moved to it and saw huge giant
trees that reached so far up I could not see their tops. Redwoods? Pine
trees and redwoods, ferns, vines all over them. I looked up and the warm
sun bathed my face. I was sweating. I also felt something. In my stomach.
It hurt. Growing pain? I moved to the clearing and it was then that I
noticed something...no, someone. Someone was lying in the sand around
some semi tall bushes and stalks. I saw feet. Lovely feet. Seemingly
trimmed toenails and dirty feet. I moved to the person, another survivor?
Not quite. He was blue in death. Cold stone dead. I had come upon the
great body of Peter Pan.


The play Peter Pan and its characters are trademarks of and copyright
J.M. Barrie