The Biggest Pretend
We all pretend like we don't see but we all know the truth. It's just common courtesy, really. As service we give to him and feel so special because we are the only one that can do this. Let him pretend that he's normal, just for the day, just for the night. We laugh behind our hands at his biggest pretend.
He isn't who we would have though he would be. Growing up with Peter Pan, the Peter Pan was a dream come true, a dream any child would covet dearly. It should have been the adventure of a lifetime. Looking back now, I know that we weren't nearly grateful enough. We didn't understand the gift that we were given. And all our parents could do was watch in horror while we slowly killed the only one that could give us those deepest childhood desires.
The magic came back into the land, not slowly as was expected but in a great big rush, imitating a dam broken free. There were suddenly mermaids in our oceans, fairies in every garden and him. Peter Pan. He appeared in our grade ten classroom one chilly December morning looking cocky and confident as though he owned the place. He introduced himself with the quiet confidence of a well adjusted child and smirked at us as we gaped at his persona. He was indeed, then, the very picture of Peter Pan. The government had placed him in school, regardless of the fact that he was thousands of years older than all of us put together. In their eyes, he was a child and he needed to learn and that was all they could think of.
True to form, we all ignored him that first week. That didn't seem to bother the boy at all. His eyes still twinkled as though he were constantly laughing at everyone and everything around him - enjoying life. We would soon, much too soon take all that away.
Days later, when we were sure that the new child wouldn't bite, we all flocked him almost completely at the same time. It would have overwhelmed anyone else but the boy took it all completely in stride, as though he were used to it and expecting it, always. We had many questions for him that day and he answered them all, I believe, to the very best of his ability. We wanted to know where he was from, where Neverland really was. We wanted to know where Neverland had been before and where it had gone now that Peter Pan was no longer there. We wanted to know where he lived now and with whom and why he was in our school specifically and how long he was going to stay.
Then the intelligent among us, the ones who had read the book asked the boy about the stories in there. We asked him about Wendy and Captain Hook and the crocodile and were confused and upset when he couldn't or wouldn't tell us anything more concrete then yes, that happened and no, he had no idea how J. M. Barrie could have possibly known those things. It was the first of our disappointments.
We all, I believe, thought that we wanted to be close to him to befriend him, to protect his and bask in his special light. I think that we lied to ourselves and said that it was not for personal gain, that the only thing we would receive was this special friendship of a magical boy. I think that we were wrong.
The truth was that we wanted to control him, to own him. He was so beautiful, so powerful and we were in a war of our own making.
I wasn't part of it, in the beginning or the end but I wasn't strong enough to resist. I watched as they ripped his heart out and dimmed his light. He was never the same after that, after our class was through with him at the end of that first year.
I watched from the sidelines as the boy's eyes grew darker and darker. He watched us with a weariness that was never meant for his physical age. I was there as his feet touched the ground for the last time and he never flew again.
The most powerful children in our class, the ones with the powerful parents and just as powerful friends behind them, had won the struggle. The kept a firm hold on Peter Pan. It started out innocently enough. They tried to be his friend, tried to manipulate his time in a way that was not noticeable by all. Before he knew what was happening, they had him under their thumb and they weren't letting go. The friendly encounters turned violent. They used him, used him so shamelessly that it makes me sick at the thought. And still no one did anything to help him.
Perhaps we were all afraid of the consequence of future action. They had amassed so much magical power though threats and coercions, dangling the boy in front of the right noses and though the magical community all hated them, they bowed to them, because they could do nothing else.
To this day, I know not why nobody tried to stop them, us. Everyone must have known what we were doing, everyone must have seen. We sure weren't very subtle about it, that I do know. But no one ever came and stood in front of our class or stopped us in a shadowy hall to tell us that what we were doing was wrong and ply us with guilt until we relented and repented and let him go. They didn't take him out of school, or transfer him to a different classroom let alone a different country. Perhaps they knew that it would be the same there. Perhaps they simply didn't care as long as he was no longer in their hair to worry about.
We are not worthy to call him but his first name. He gave us leave to use it that first day and he flinched whenever someone used it thereafter. What we did to the poor boy…
Peter Pan graduated valedictorian of the graduating class with us two years later and we all acted like the perfect picture of a happy group of teenagers. We all knew that he would get punished for the transgression later. They kept him on a tight leash to be sure but he ended up in the same university as most of us, studying science and actually teaching a class on some of the theory of magic that he understood from his years of being so intimately connected to it.
People avoided him in the hallways, weather it was because of his so called masters or because his reputation preceded him didn't matter. He was left alone, completely and utterly lonely. And I suppose for Peter Pan, the one always surrounded by people, this was the metaphorical straw that broke the camel's back and our final mistake.
I remember the day he snapped. The day it all ended. The day people learned that magic could be dangerous, that Peter Pan was so much more then simply a boy and that he shouldn't be trifled with and wasn't meant to be controlled. It was the day when we learned that there was other magic in the world. That even the magic of Peter Pan could hurt.
We would never have suspected it, though in retrospect I remember the moments with perfect clarity. I wonder now, if it is something that he has done unknowingly or with past intent. I was studying under the great willow tree in the middle of the lawn in front of the university. The weather was beautiful; it was such a pretty day. I saw him come out of the building, just having finished a class, one strap of a schoolbag hitched over his shoulder.
He looked both ways before crossing over to of the benches nearby and wasted no time in opening a textbook and continuing his studies. I had taken a moment then out of my own studies to privately laugh at the very idea of Peter Pan studying. He was the boy that never wanted to grow up. Studying did not fit that image at all. It's interesting that even now, we still think of him in those old terms that are no longer fit to apply.
She came up behind him and the boy tensed as though he knew in advance. She sat down beside him, then threw all of his stuff down to the ground and spread out her lunch. She enjoyed it with relish right there in front of him, talking to him, making him look at her all the time. It wasn't anything that hadn't been done before. Her friends came over, all of the boys and girls from my high school class. They talked over him as though he weren't there, except for a few scathing remarks in his general vicinity.
I heard his quiet voice asking them to stop. That in itself was new, he had never asked before. He did now. I asked them three times. Then he yelled, his voice rising in some type of panicked hysteria. I think that he knew what was to come.
The weather got worse so suddenly. Where there had been clear skies just moment before now there were clouds and wind and the promise of a torrent of rain. Someone pushed Peter Pan to the ground and I could see his mouth forming words, still begging them. They yelled at him to stop whatever he was doing and he just kept shaking his head mouthing words again and again until I understood them to mean I Can't.
Some more words were exchanged, some more physical violence. The rain started to pour then, mirroring the tears on the boy's cheeks. The fairies came first. The swarmed my classmates and held them in a tight circle pressed close to each other and unable to move. Other things came, things much much too terrible to mention. And in the midst of it all Peter screamed. I don't remember words, just rage and pain finally finding an outlet. There was wind surrounding him and he hovered a few feet off the ground for the first time in years. He looked so beautiful, so powerful. He yelled and the fairies let go and the teenagers, the foolish children were in a heap on the flour yelling in silent torment.
They never found a cure. No one could figure out what Peter Pan had done to them though they are trying still. I don't think anyone has asked him. No one told him to leave the college and leave the rest of us alone, so he is still here. He still goes to classes and eats lunch outside in the grass when the weather is good. He seems happier now, certainly more at peace.
That special magical childish light he had when he first came to us is still gone. Perhaps it is not all bad. Perhaps Peter Pan simply grew up. He is still so powerful, so beautiful. He lives here amongst us mere mortals and we see him and try to pretend. Pretend that we haven't seen how powerful he is when we considered him helpless. Pretend that he isn't connected to and able to wield with ease all of the magic in the world. But mostly, pretend that after all that, it isn't his greatest pretend at all, but ours.