©Jason I. Stutz 2019
Chapter 1
God hovered over Never-never Land (or so it was called). God didn’t name it thus. Her world was everywhere but the incalculable co-ordinates of that star that Peter built. Peter occasionally glanced upward to Her World. Then, God saw his eyes, at last; God saw the retinas and pupils of Her prodigal child, and raised Her finger to speak a loving Word to Peter. But Peter was too fast for God, zipping onward into battle, calling up his troops from their stuffed animal piles and their sweet slumber.
The window glass of Wendy and her brother’s bedroom received an impatient “tap, tap, tap!” Inside, their beds were cozy and the blankets were thick and soft. Each of the children snored slightly and felt a peace undisturbed by anxiety. Their meals were always cooked for them by Mary or Mrs. Darling and, either way, were always delicious. Their school books arrived every year on the 25th of August. Their mother and father doted a little too much on them– especially their father who was always anxious that they had everything they could possibly want. They were happy children- until that “tap, tap, tap” sounded upon their window pane that early-Winter’s eve.
“Tap, tap, tap, tap” rattled the window pane closest to Wendy’s bed, quite a bit impetuously, if Wendy had had her say about it. The three children inside each rustled a bit in their warm beds. Wendy was first to become alert to the strange face eclipsing the night sky behind the glass. “A strange and startling face,” she first thought. Then, after taking in a bit of information about it, “A pretty face,” she felt. “What strange and startling and… pretty face are you?!” she said backing slightly away from the window onto her bed.
“Open up! Let’s go on an adventure!” Peter tapped again. Wendy recognized Peter. They were in the same class when she was in 1st grade. He was always running away and inviting the other children to join him, as, now, he has come this night to do.
Wendy swung the double windows out, pushing out her head with all the authority of an oldest sister, into the English night. Peter felt the warm, still air inside the children’s bedroom, and the cold from his world mixed inside the bedroom air of theirs. “Wissshhh,” he moved inside past Wendy, silently. His shadow immediately returned, like a little brother pounding up to him, fists raised, asking him where he’s been! Peter Pan nodded his head and welcomed his shadow to seal upon his feet, again, which it did without hesitation, as yet still dismayed from their separation. No one had ever lost his shadow before, yet Peter seems to lose his all the time.
“Off and away!!” yelled Peter, raising his pointer finger to the star he makes his home. The Children stood three abreast with their feet firm on the floor. “Tinker Bell! Oooooh, Tiiiii-nker-beeeeeeellllll!!” Tinker Bell blazed into the children’s bedroom like a tiny meteor with her little wand of fairy dust. “Peter!” she looked at him. “To Neverland!” he shouted to all. “Peter!” scolded Tinkerbell, turning her face back to him even as she reached to the children to do his will. The fairy dust shook resistlessly from her starry wand like a flower clumsily sharing its load of pollen. The children’s feet levitated some inches from the carpet over the oak floor. Charlie’s eyes widened, and Wendy shook her head defiantly even as this wondrous event overtook her senses. “Oh, dear,” she shook. And off they went, “Second star to the right and straight on until morning! To Never-never Laaa-aaaand!”
Chapter 2
It was loneliness that got to Peter Pan. He spent all of his time lazing on his back, under the trees in the line of forest outside the school that he was banished from- dreaming. He dreamt of many things to feel better. He dreamt, first, of ordinary things, like having friends to eat good food with on a picnic, or… well… mostly, he dreamt of having friends. What he would do with them, how he might impress them, how each would admire him and follow him. They would caress him, and they would all lay in a pile of togetherness, giggling… and they would join him in his dreams… they all would be whisked up somehow into a whirlcloud of a dream that he dreamt. But how… how would that work… if only a secret could be spoken and he would have the knowledge…
Peter Pan did not at that moment yet know that Tinkerbell was there listening to each of his heart’s whispers, dreaming the same dreams as He (she always capitalized his pronouns when she mentioned him in the 3rd person, which, really, was only ever to hERSELF). Tinkerbell swam upon his whispered wishes like a small, green leaf on gentle waves, sighing with each wish, “Ohhh,” and “A-a-h-h-h.” She waited with him for the opening.
She waited each day, for days and days, always there above him, behind him, astride him. She mimicked his body to feel more aligned with him:
-laying with hands behind head, dreaming dreams;
-standing with hands on hips, defiant;
-reaching to the sky with both arms stretched, exulting in his plans;
-hand on chin holding up head, belly on the ground while thinking;
-spooning with his body as he slept;
-on and on;
on and on, for days and days.
You see, Tinkerbell was in love. Not only was she in love with Peter Pan, she was as lonely has he was, banished by her Pixie society for playing the game “Wish” while all the other children were sleeping- a definite “forbidden” in Pixieland. Some children woke up with the ears of other children, hearing other children’s thoughts. Others woke up with their hands on their feet and their feet on their elbows and their elbows… well, some things I shant divulge… but no matter how Tinkerbell apologized she couldn’t help having strange wishes and wishing them when the other children slept.
She cried and cried before the Pixie King and Queen, but as soon as they went their way, satisfied she’d reform, she lay down on her bed of wishes once again and reached to the furnace of stars beyond the visible stars, to wish stranger wishes than before.
Finally, as all the Pixies sobbed (for, actually, they rather liked Tinkerbell, despite her strange wishes), Tinkerbell heard her sentence through the blubbering tears and croaking voice of the town crier. As he lay down the scroll to his side, the Pixie Judge took the green stem of a daffodil in his fat, Pixie fingers, and laid it upon his pulpit… final judgement. His fat tear fell to the parchment making his signature irrelevant, for everyone present understood what the mark of his tear meant.
Tinkerbell staggered away, moved by a force beyond herself—> out—> away from Pixie land—> away–> away–> away–> away… Her heart divided and broken, she staggered. Out of her Pixie body, her mind went away, away, away, away from her pain. Her little Pixie feet stepped, step by step, into an abyss of an unknown future. She’ll have to create one herself. Alone, she wept.
As she came back after a few days, her mind to her body, she thought of what she had, (compared to the ocean of love that she no longer had). She can wish, still, she saw; and she can still fly: two talents she’d always had. The kind Pixie Judge and the Pixie King and Queen left her with those out of the kindness in their tremendous Pixie hearts. She silently thanked them and simultaneously scorned them, creating an emotional and behavioral pattern in herself that would cause many problems for quite a little while.
Peter finally had what he wanted- a crowd of young children listening to his every word as he lead them through the forest. As they marched along the leaves and fallen twigs, Peter looked back upon them with his laughing eyes, exposing the magic of his mind to the children. He marched and marched forward, fueled by the energy of their curiosity. He looked back upon them and charged forward- his gunny sack full of fetishes from the yard sales of many summers clinked and clacked. He looked back at the children's beaming faces as they challenged him that he was only making believe. But their curiosity gripped them to him like tractor beams. He looked back and shared the magic of his mind with the children and as they approached the cliff, Peter Pan started a stronger stride. "Tinker-bell! Oooooh, Tinker-beeeeelllll!!!!" he called.
And "Wishhhhhhhh!" she was compelled to release her magic pollen upon them all, her dust wetting the fibers of their clothes and sinking into the hairy crowns of their small heads. As the children all locked their eyes upon his face, locked their ears upon his voice, they all lifted up from that embankment and rose on the trail of Peter's imaginary command. "Second star to the right and straight on until morning!!!" he called to the endless night, the captain of many soldiers.
<p style="text-align:center;"><strong><em>Peter as a boy</em></strong></p>
Peter was named, Peter Pangea Peterson by his family of origin. His mother had a strange sense of humor, governed by her experience as a child, herself. His name quickly became, for short, the perfunctory, Peter Pan. When she was<em> really</em> funny, she quickened it to "PP." "Are you my little PP? Are you my little PP?" she cooed as his hands pushed her away with tiny might.
He had an uncle who lived with them, his mother's father's brother. He was still youngish and was very jovial around Peter. He often watched Peter move about, sometimes displaying extra concern. Alone, the boy Peter held his towel in front of him by the pool, as his uncle stood between Peter and the door. "Peter you know I'm a big fan of yours and I'd always do you right." And he stepped down to Peter's face and put his hand on Peter's perfect round penis. Peter's mind was white. He would never be good, again.
<p style="text-align:center;"><strong><em>Later</em></strong></p>
Sitting around the kids attic room, Wendy and John and Michael, the youngest (who teeter toddlered playfully about the play area), Peter Pan floated headlong through the window surprising all, especially John. Michael cried as he fell on his bottom. Wendy rest her face upon Peter. "Such a pretty face," she thought. "Hello," she said.
Peter Pan sat amongst them on the floor, but it seemed he was sitting upon a throne.
"Would you come with me, today?" he invited.
"Come?" Wendy asked.
"Ok, then!" snapped Peter. "It's all decided!"
"What... where are we going?"
"To Never-never Land!"
Peter sat amongst the children. His voice was being heard by others for the very first time. Until now, only the trees and insects and other forest creatures heard him, but never before other children. He had had a lot of time alone to dream his dreams. Now, he began to speak and tell his tales of Never-never Land, of Captain Hook and the Lost Boys who fell from Earth and live there. The children all listened with rapt attention. Until he reached the part he had been bringing them to: “And you can go there with me, right now, if you so much as will it.” They didn’t believe him of course, but he had been there so many times in his imagination that he knew the way even “through a forest in the dark, blind,” all he had to do was wish it and he was there.
The children defiantly questioned him. Peter would allow no doubt; they were in or they were out. They were in, they said; as much as it was so, they were in.
The Cliff
Peter finally had what he wanted- a crowd of young children listening to his every word as he lead them through the forest. As they marched along the leaves and fallen twigs, Peter looked back upon them with his laughing eyes, exposing the magic of his mind to the children. He marched and marched forward, fueled by the energy of their curiosity. He looked back upon them and charged forward. His gunny sack full of fetishes from the yard sales of many summers clinked and clacked. He looked back at the children’s beaming faces as they challenged him that he was only making believe. But their curiosity gripped them to him like tractor beams. He looked back and shared the magic of his mind with the children and as they approached the cliff, Peter Pan started a stronger stride. “Tinker-bell! Oooooh, Tinker-beeeeelllll!!!” he called.
And “Wishhhhhhhh!” she was compelled to release her magic pollen upon them all, her dust wetting the fibers of their clothes and sinking into the hairy crowns of their small heads. As the children all locked their eyes upon Peter face, locked their ears upon his voice, they all lifted up from that embankment and rose on the trail of Peter’s imaginary command. “Second star to the right and straight on until morning!!!” he called to the endless night, the captain of many soldiers.
Stay or Go Home!
The children all returned, exhausted but exhiliarated, home. They wanted more and more to visit Never-never Land, but all of those adventures made them feel whooped! Captain Hook wasn’t getting any less cruel, and his hatred for Peter Pan was taking a turn for the worse. In Never-never Land, they’re power was great, drawing upon the powers they would know, sensing who they would become and tearing a piece of that energy to apply it to their masks to experience it now, before they grew up into themselves.
Peter Pan wanted more and more to stay in Never-never Land. The Lost Boys gave him adequate company and revered him as their hero. They all begged him to stay each time he stepped off the bridge over the water, turned to face them, and wisssshhhhed away on a trail of star dust to retrieve the children for more adventures.
One day, however, Wendy thought and thought. She thought about Peter Pan, about her life in England. Surely, Peter would excel in all things… if only he’d try. Peter arrived, his mischeivous smile shining through the snow-frosted glass of the children’s attic.
“Peter,” she said,” what do you think of the news? Is it fair or is it not? Are you on the side of the whoozywhats or the whatsawhoozies?”
Peter laughed, relieved. “Oh, Wendy- I do not know a thing about this world, nor, truly, do I care. It affects me very little if the whoozywhats have their way or not. But I am the living authority of the world I made, and am affected only of the condition of my ships and my soldiers. But I tell you a secret- if even one child were to say that pixies do not exist, Tinkerbell would come down with a terrible cough and might not survive. And what would Never-never Land become?” Peter noticeably shuddered and tugged on Wendy’s half-believing heart.
Wendy felt a terrible pang of guilt, suddenly. “Oh, Peter! Tell us, again, of Never-never Land. Please??” She asked so sweetly it softened even Peter’s heart.
“You may visit!” he gave to the children, but then admonished them, “if you wish to fly.”
Part II
Peter was fraught. He knew that the aim of his imagination was depleting him of all of his power. The scenes he cast upon the sky of his mind and the minds of the children. Wendy almost didn’t wake up. She slept and slept and slept and no one, nothing could wake her. After a few days, her body threatened to go dumb forever and Peter feared she would start to stink. For the first time since he was one day old, he raised his eyes unblinking toward the Light and God’s face shown curiously in his sight, Her countenance joyous and amazed at the turn of Peter’s sight.
Peter left the city of London for the woods. He found a pleasant vale near a wide, softly flowing creek, and there lay his head upon a tree’s roots and gazed up at the night sky, gentle stars intercommunicating with him.
After 3 nights, he saw he felt such peace in that place that he thought he’d better build a cabin, there. He realized, however, that he is very lazy, so he determined to build his house by one stick each day and lay under it that night. So that fourth night, he leaned a short, bald branch against that tree and slept in the triangle between tree, stick, and earth. And he slept quite peacefully, so that he felt encouraged, when, the next day, he leaned another stick against that tree and that night slept underneath the two sticks, the tree, and the earth.
By the fourth year, his house grew to a feat so marvelous that the whole of his vision was absorbed in where and how he would place the next stick that evening.
Stutz's Fairy Tales and Poems 