Hidden
Author's Note: Based on my story, "Another in Your Place". Words from the innermost part of Peter Pan's soul, where nothing is pretend, and everything is honesty in its purest sense. The only place where the veil of childishness and ignorance, that he has cloaked himself with, cannot protect him from the truth hidden deep within his being.
There are so many things that I do not remember. So many moments of anger and hatred; love and joy; dread and fear. Far too many for me to ever know. I have been Pan for longer than I could ever tell, and I know that it is the only way for me.
Why do I not remember?
Because I do not allow myself to do so. I can not remember.
To remember would be to know.
I can not know; because then, I would know how old I really am. I would know the horror that I have seen, and the pain that I have felt in the loneliness of my existence.
I am the eternal youth. I am the one that roams the skies, dances with fairies, and whispers with the mermaids. I am the one that knows the rituals of the Indians, the brawling with the pirates, and the excitement of a forest's seductive dangers. I hunt for game and for food. I fight for play and for defense. I am what all children want to be.
I am Peter Pan.
I am the Neverland. We are joined like a mother to her son.
The Neverland is me. We are joined like a father to his child.
I feel her happiness, and she rejoices in mine. I feel her darkness, and she feels my pain. I am the one that fills children's lives with magic and gold. I am the one that lifts them from their sometimes dreary days, in the silence of their slumbering nights. I fill their sleep with visions from my home. They see with closed eyes, what when awake they will never know.
They know of me, but they will never know all of me. They only see what I allow them to see; a golden child with a mischievous grin, and a spark in my emerald green eyes with the promise of laughter and pleasures beyond their mundane lives.
Their dreams feed my being. Their innocence keeps me young. Their ignorance of all the terrors of adulthood is what sustains the magic of my land.
They are, why I am.
They are, why I can never be more.
If I remembered, I would know I am not entirely happy.
If I remembered, I'd know that I am lacking. So long I've been a boy of 12.
Too long, to be a boy of 12.
If I could remember the countless games that have gone horribly wrong; if I could remember the countless playmates that paid with their lives, I would know it was all my fault.
I would know the tragedy of hope.
The hope that makes me think that all is just in fun. That the pirate would never truly strike me through; that the mermaid would never pull me completely into the blue. That my men's arrows would never pierce through the sun dried skin.
If I could remember; I would know about the many that have come and gone. They could do so. They were not the Pan, and they were not tied to this land. They came and had their many joys, and then their sun began to set, and their gold began to fade. So they returned to the normal world, to live out their silver night.
I will never have a night.
She thought she wanted what I had, my Wendy I mean.
She called me into her home, like all the others did. But when I took her hand and lifted her off the ground, and vowed to share with her all of my world, she decided, it was not for her.
She thought I didn't understand. She thought that the boy that I am could never see past the fun and games, to the magic and joys that only age can bring.
She was wrong.
I know it all too well. I know what awaits all children when they grow away from me. They trade in their mother's stories with fairy tale endings and happily ever afters for romantic tales of their own meetings with those that will forever love them. They trade in the security of their father's strong arms for the frightening adventures out on their own. They trade in the pretend tea parties and doll dressings for children of their own and houses to call their homes. They trade in the innocence of their youth for understanding of their world. It's one magic for another.
The other I can never know.
So here I am. The tragedy, as Hook put it so eloquently. I despised him because he knew what I knew, but he spoke it, and my ears heard it, and this hidden part of me would surface every now and then. And it takes time for my veil of ignorance to subdue this voice, but it always does; and I am free to enjoy the whispers of my land and its lullabies of golden sun yet again. I am ignorant because I have to be. I forget because I chose to do so.
To remember is to know, and to know is to feel the pain. A child cannot know of the pain or the silver, for then, he will cease to be gold and a child no more. But it's all there. It's just hidden, deep within the only part of Neverland that is and should be closed off to me eternally.
I am Peter Pan, the eternal youth, with a memory as white as the winter's first snow.
I show you my world, but you will abandon me like all the others.
But then, your children will be, and I will come for them. They will laugh and they will play, and they will be gold until they turn silver, and then they will leave me too. But it will go on, for childhood is why I am, and children will forever roam the dull land.
I am Peter Pan.