pan’s love
serene nights at neverland are lies and the starry sky is a canvass of emptiness, with damp clouds of doubts momentarily floating, as thoughts do.
on a day of rest, pan and his boys lie on their beds, recounting days of their never-ending quests.
“tiger lily is beautiful.” felix says, eyes fixated on pan’s, waiting for a reaction from his leader.
but pan’s in a daze, tired from traveling by foot for days, exhausted from flying from indian camp to the mermaid lagoon. his eyes never left the ceiling, a wood painted with stars, asteroids.
“leader,” the lost boy calls out, taking pan away from his gaze. pan faces him, confusion painted his face like the wood with its bright spots.
“huh?”
“tiger lily is a beauty, is she not?” he repeats.
peter stalls. and he recalls. that night at the indian camp, tiger lily sings to welcome them. she is beautiful, yes. her voice is a wonder, yes. but he worries. she cannot fly.
“yeah.” he answers. felix smiles at him. “but she cannot fly.”
“does love need to have wings, peter?” he questions pan.
“do not be funny, felix.” he laughs, ironically. “we don’t fly by wings alone. i don’t own a pair of them but i still could fly.”
“that’s because you own neverland.”
pan does not own neverland, felix. you see, he’s a boy of wonder, and the pixie dust he owns is a bottle of possibilities that lets him see neverland in its entirety. because for once it made him see wendy, a girl from worlds so far she grew tired of flying. but he loved her. he dearly, so loved darling.
pan does not own wendy, felix. you see, he’s a boy for centuries now. wendy is a darling but peter is not a man. like a lost boy, he’s a scavenger — a hunter of lost treasures, but good stars does he only love one thing. his pixie dust. and it will never be wendy.
“i do not, my boy.” pans smiles. “let’s call it a day.”
serene nights at neverland are loneliness and the sky is rid of stars that resemble pan’s ceiling. beautiful as women are, peter knows love is too crucial to let beauty alone fly towards it. beautiful as wendy is, peter knows they are worlds apart.
and besides, he has no plans of growing up.
