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Sometimes, it felt like you would have to kill in order to splash some sense of color into the daily dismal London evening. Shifting grey clouds banked along the winding brick roads as if it were their God given duty to obscure any signs of life and light. It seemed as though some divine being was trying to mask the sins of a modern world under a thick blanket of dismal mist. Still, I walked on, helplessly lost in that foggy cover of lonely nights; not even bothering to hold onto any vague hope of ever being found. But it was easy to learn not to care. My emotional palate had long since felt about as stale as the crusty bread I kept stashed away in my scratchy grey shawl. London was London. And I was just me. It had been this way long before I even was. It was pointless to scowl at the weightless clouds no matter how despairingly they obscured the everyday scenery.
“Why so sad? Did you have a bad dream?” a voice suddenly called out to me from the depths of a forgotten alley way. I quickly turned my head in its direction only to find a very strange sort of man. It was rare to find a careless wanderer here at this time at night, and even rarer to find one willing to actually converse.
But wait, man? Should I even call him a man? It was hard to say with how he kept his entire face hidden behind a dark masquerade mask. I wanted to think of him as an odd stranger, but he wasn’t quite a man like most would assume. His voice was light and free. His stature was barely taller than mine. He seemed more like a child than anything else. Then again, it was hard to tell much of anything about him as he kept his form shrouded in a dark young schoolboy’s cloak and an odd gray mask sporting an unsettling smile.
“Who are you?” I asked while reaching a hand down for a small wrench I kept in my pocket as a weapon just in case. “Why are you wearing such a dark mask?”
He laughed lightly and I could only assume that a cheap smile was spreading beneath the thick plastic he wore. “Hm, probably because my personality is simply too colorful!” Colorful? What could possibly be too colorful at this point?
He quickly circled around me in an eager curiosity, feet traveling so swiftly they almost seemed to leave the ground entirely as he practically fluttered around me. “But now it’s your turn to answer my question. That’s the rules.”
I blinked while tracing the laughing and lightminded child’s movements carefully with my eyes. I couldn’t guess his age. He maybe had a year or two on me? Either way, finding someone so young and happy and…free at this time of night was odd to say the least. He came out of nowhere. He gave no name, no indication as to why he was here or where he intended on going. He had just drifted from the shadows and pulled my attention away as if it were second nature for any human being to do so. Honestly, I had no idea on how to answer him, but somehow, I felt the need to.
“I…” I began to stutter uselessly, vainly trying to conjure up an answer to a question I already forgot, “I don’t know.” was all I could offer in the end.
He paused in his movements and looked at me through his blank dark mask in silence before tilting his head. “Don’t know?” he asked. “You don’t know what your dreams are?”
I swallowed heavily as if put under some sort of grand trial and had just given a determinately wrong answer. “I…I never said that!” I countered in a sudden slight panic, “I have dreams. Lots of them! Of course, I remember them!”
Stubborn pride. Stubborn pride and an unwillingness to admit fault. Vaguely, I recalled the distant memory of one my great aunts chastising me with such words.
The strange child didn’t seem to catch on to the lie however and instead perked up at the hasty response, “Really?” he cheered, “Okay, then what are they?”
I clenched my sweaty palms.
How was I supposed to know? Dreams were... they were just whimsical fantasies. Light and frivolous and fake. I’d already given up on them. But I had to come up with something – something strong and incessant compelled me to do so.
In the end, I settled for nightmares instead. “Th-there’s…there’s monsters in the dark!” I shouted at first. “They hide in the shadows and collect under beds. They disappear every time I turn to look at them, but I know they’re there! Long and tall monsters with thin and stretchy arms. They all thread around each other and weave their fingers and toes together like some twisted frayed string. It’s terrifying.”
“String?” He tilted his head his again in question, but I swear I could feel the smile that grew on this stranger’s face even though I couldn’t see it. “Monsters and string? Then, do you often sew up your shadows?”
I swear I could hear my heartbeat thrumming in my head, “N-no,” I mumbled. “No you can’t. That’s…that’s impossible, right? It’s just…it’s just a dream. A make-believe thought.”
“But you believe it, right?” he asked innocently. “Don’t you?”
I stared back at the other kid uncertain if I wanted to laugh or cry. Those first nights on the streets were some of the coldest and darkest of my life and I had been absolutely certain that those shadows were real. They stared at me, hungry like I was. But time and time again, I had forced myself to repeat the same mantra over and over: They’re not real. They’re not real. They’re not real. I don’t believe in shadows. I don’t. I don’t.
“No.” I eventually answered, “No, I lost those silly dreams the same day I lost everything else.” I said as if trying to convince even myself.
“Lost?” he asked as if the mere word was foreign to him, “What do you mean lost?”
I clenched my fists harder and glared at him. “Lost!” I argued back angrily. “It means it’s lost! Gone! Forgotten! Left alone and abandoned! Hidden! No home! No shoes! No nothing! It’s just lost!”
“But where does it go?” he asked me further, somehow completely unaffected by my sudden outburst. “It’s not like it just disappears. They don’t die. They don’t end. Nothing just ceases to exist. So where? Where do lost things go?” His words somehow seemed to mock mine.
I shoved him hard on the shoulders as if trying to suddenly pick a fight with this stranger, or perhaps just to get some personal space that he seemed eager to invade. “How should I know?” I continued shouting. “I don’t know where it is. That’s why it’s lost! Lost things they-they…they go where all lost things go. Into the unknown, I suppose. They just go into the oblivion.” These were foreign thoughts, foreign words that I was smelting together with no reason to figure out how it would turn out.
He took my searing words with ease and hummed in careful thought while he reaching up to tap the edge of my forehead lightly. “But where is that?”
I scoffed and took a further step back. This kid was ridiculous. He may be older than me, but he clearly had no sense of reason or…or…or whatever it is that adults get when they become older. Because adults know things. That’s why kids like him do all the questioning. When you are an adult, you don’t have to wonder about anything anymore. You just…do whatever it is adults do.
A sudden winter chill shook me out of my thoughts but there was very little I could do to further trap what meager amount of warmth I possessed around me. Still, the reminder of upcoming winter did well to calm my nerves and mellow out my anger. Instead, I was just left with an overwhelming feeling of unsatisfaction.
Eventually, I just turned my shoulders, folded my arms, and muttered a useless answer back his way to kill the heavy silence that had fallen during my misery, “I don’t know that either.” I mumbled begrudgingly, “Probably to some other dimension or something.” I wasn’t an adult. I didn’t have the answers.
“Into oblivion?” he asked.
I shrugged and refused to look him in the eye. “Yeah, why not?”
“Exactly!” the kid shouted so loud and merrily that it actually made me jump with how abrupt it was. “I think so to! The world of lost things! A place full of all things in this vast and eternally existing world! Full of everything everyone has ever lost – all the hopes and dreams discarded by the millions of people. Imagine what an incredible world that would be! Wouldn’t you want to go there?”
I coiled even further back as if his happiness was a direct assault on me. I didn’t understand what he was saying. I didn’t even understand who this kid even was. “Oblivion?” I had to check again, incredulous on if he was being serious or not.
It was now his time to shrug at me. “Oblivion? Yeah, why not?”
He was mocking me. I scoffed. “Don’t be ridiculous. It’s not cool or magical. It’s…it’s empty. It’s dark and cold... just some endless and empty void.” The words came out as naturally as though my very existence were the only evidence I needed.
“Empty?” he asked as if I had personally insulted him. “How could you think it’s empty? I incredibly full of everything you could ever want. Weren’t you listening to me?”
I choked on my own tongue, “Well I…I mean,” Stubborn pride. Stubborn and an idled brain.
“You’re wrong about it all,” he continued, inevitably becoming redundant at the expense of my pride. “It’s bright and warm. It’s magical and wonderful. It’s never ever been empty since the very beginning.”
The child suddenly leaned in from behind me till he was able to whisper gently into my ear. “It’s full of colors that you can’t even imagine. It’s brighter than the glint in your eye. It’s warmer than your rapid heartbeat. The place where the lost things go is like the treasure box of broken riddles and stolen keys.”
I hastily pushed him back again. “And tell me why you know this?” I roughly accused him. Everything he was saying felt like a direct contrast to my everyday life and it put me on edge. He was a threat, I reasoned. Though I still didn’t know why I was standing here talking to him.
He easily moved aside under my shove but continued his chipper laugh. “You’re the one who wanted to sew up shadows.”
I stuttered again. “N-no, that’s not what I-”
“No?” he interjected. “Then what was it?”
“What was…?”
“Your dreams,” he clarified. “What are they?”
“I...my dreams…” Perhaps I still did remember them. The childish ones. The ones I played and imagined when I didn’t feel the need to watch my back at every second. They were old. They were probably useless... but I guess I still somehow kept a memory of them.
I took a deep breath and scrounged my brain for the all the things I had promised myself to forget. “I…I wanted to conquer castles.” I began hesitantly. “Like...like a princess- no wait... I wanted to be a hero. Or was it... I wanted to be special and loved. More than anyone else. I wanted a house full of cake and gum drops with ice cream every morning. I wanted to climb the largest tree in the whole wide world and catch the fastest frog.” The words came out far too easily than how they should have. It felt like a dam was breaking forth and gushing my honest words out unbidden for the first time in years. I felt out of breath.
I almost wanted to say more. “I wanted to be someone good, someone bad, it didn’t matter, as long as it was special and unique and far too incredible to ignore. I wanted to control the weather and walk on water. I wanted to chase magical butterflies and learn how to fly. I wanted to climb secret garden walls, and fight the wind, and turn crayon into gold, and live a life that wasn’t mine. I wanted to be loved and adored and adorned.” I admitted almost in a mad frenzy near the end.
And he didn’t question my sudden fervor. I still couldn’t tell what his expression was, but again I could guess that he was still smiling, just as pleasantly as before. “See? You really do have lots of nice dreams, don’t you?”
“I...” A spark of confusion suddenly hit me. I did have dreams. I didn’t know about now. And the embitterment of what I was and what I am now only soured my mood further.
But he didn’t seem to care. “I guess it’s my turn now?”
“Your turn?” I asked, incredulous.
“Yes. My turn. Let me tell you a story,” he continued calmly while resuming his careful circle around me while words effortlessly fluttered out of his mouth like frantic bats tickling my ear. “In my dreams, there is a world. A world where watery monsters lurk, spell bound fairies roam, and distant drums beat on and on and on in the deep forest. Everyone, everyone is as free as the clouds below.”
“Below?” I asked a little surprised. My head was already running dizzy from trying to follow his logic. I was now convinced that he simply had none.
He nodded enthusiastically, “Exactly!” he affirmed confidently, completely unaware to how odd it sounded to me. “It’s always, always below. Because the world I speak of is always above. The lowly clouds bank along the stars and the sea washes up amongst its constellations. It’ll steal your breath away then give it back again. But it won’t be air. It’ll be sunlight. You’ll breathe color. You’ll see sound. You’ll feel taste. You’ll hear emotion. In this world the monsters hiding underneath the bed are real. The whispers in the dark are your friends. Your shadows are your greatest nemesis. In this world, the impossible is the only thing that’s rational. The lost is found. Mere fantasy is reality. Alone is a crowd. Falling is flying, and never ever is always.”
“Always?”
“Yes, always. Always, always a child. Always never ever growing up. Never ever losing time. Always. Always having the time of your life. Always, always never ever land. Always never. Always in Neverland.”
“You’re speaking in riddles.” I countered skeptically.
“I am speaking the only thing that makes sense,” he said with a shrug. “For a world of dreams, it can’t be reality. So obviously it is a place that’s foolish, frivolous, nonsensical, utterly ridiculous, and in all sense of the word positively miraculous. It was never anything but was always everything. Never, in that moment, will mean everything.”
“I don’t understand.” I countered while shaking my head. “I don’t understand you at all. What will happen when I go there?”
“Oh that’s easy to answer,” he teased with a laugh. “In Neverland, there is no here or there. If you set sail beyond the horizon and test your reach, then you’ll find yourself amongst solar fire burning and spreading like water along the clouds at sunset. If you dive deep below the sea to test its fathoms, you will find yourself swimming through the shimmering milky way that glows in the following night. You can dig deep into stony mountains in order to discover its shimmering treasures, only to touch the cold darkness of the cloudy sky. You can try to calculate distance, but you’ll always find yourself further than you traveled. A single step is as fast as hurricane wind. A single breath is powerful enough to move mountains. It’s Never ever land. It’s the land of childishness. A land of frivolities. Any dream you dream is a dream worthy to be real. Thus is the world of oblivion.”
“The world of lost things?” I tried to clarify.
“The world of things too miraculous to be found a second time,” he chose to elaborate further.
“So lost?”
Of all things, he laughed. “Really, I’m starting to think you’ve never lost yourself in a moment before. You’ll never get the time back, but would you trade it for the elation? Always. Being lost is not a burden. It’s a freedom.”
I didn’t want to believe him. I wanted to turn away and walk right back into the cold and dismal night and forget that any of this had ever even happened. He was messing with my head. He was making me remember all the things I didn’t want to. Every honey sweet word he spoke filled my mind of all the dreams and fantasies I had left behind me sometime during the harsh stroke of reality that I had received years back. He was speaking crazy, I knew that. But still, something deep inside and instinctual compelled me to keep listening to him.
I swallowed hard and painfully as if his words were an obstruction to my very ability to breathe. “So, how do I travel to this…this place?” I asked in more than innocent suspicion. I only prayed that my shaking hands didn’t give my intentions away.
My worries proved vain as he continued to appear rather unobservant to a fault and excitedly laughed. “You ask questions that are far too easy to answer. Besides, I already told you, didn’t I?”
Somehow, he was the one who was making me feel like the ignorant child. “No you didn’t!” I argued firmly. Demanding and impatient as well. When will you learn proper manners?
“Yes, I did!” he countered. “I already said so. Right from the beginning. It’s a place for lost things. Anything that has ever been lost or forgotten goes up to another world beyond this one. That’s Neverland. So obviously Neverland is for the lost. It is the home to things that do not have a home. It is a place for those without a place. It is the light for the blind, the sound for the deaf, the pain for the numb, and the up for the down. You can’t be in Neverland if you know where you are.”
“So basically, I need to become lost?” I further clarified. He was difficult to understand at point blank.
He nodded enthusiastically while bouncing on his heels lightly. “Exactly! It’s like I’ve been saying since the beginning! The magical, magical world of the lost is the greatest freedom you’ll ever know! It’s the ultimate, ultimate freedom. So free that even reality has no hold on you. And all you have to do to get there is to lose yourself in that freedom.”
“Lose myself?” I asked almost in a daze, conflicted if I should be listening to this or not. It felt taboo. Like everything I shouldn’t be hearing. Like everything the adults never wanted me to know.
He nodded again before coming just a step closer. “Haven’t I been saying that since the beginning? Lose yourself. Lose yourself in happy thoughts.”
“I don’t... I don’t understand,” I muttered. Perhaps I was just too dumb. Dull and dim witted like Aunty told me. But everything in me wanted to know. I wanted to know the answer to his make believe lies that told such wonderful fantasies.
He gripped my shoulders, and for once I didn’t feel the need to shake him off. I felt him lean down a bit closer, making certain that I could hear his every word as clearly as possible. “Think a happy thought,” he began. “Any little happy thought, and completely lose yourself to it. Think of the brightest most significant light up in the sky, and choose the one right next to it, because no one would think to find you there. Oppose the found. Reject propriety. Deny the rational. Damn the rules. Defy mere gravity. Fly when they tell you to land. Drift when they tell you to stay. Soar when they tell you to walk. Dream when they tell you to wake up. Close your eyes, wander, and let your feet accidently lose the ground beneath them. Completely lose yourself in a world of frivolous imaginations.”
Suddenly, I shook my head and tried to slap my cheeks to shake myself awake from his hazy delirium. It was intoxicating, but I couldn’t drown in the sweetness just yet. “Is that it?” I called back with more than a little skepticism. “Is that your magical answer to obtaining your so-called freedom? To abandon yourself?”
It was his loudest laugh yet. “Silly, in order to fly, you have to be willing to abandon the earth. Isn’t it obvious? If you want to fly, then let go of what’s keeping you on solid ground. You want to join the clouds and dance in the stars you say? Then forget the surface. Completely reject it. Don’t even think about landing. You want to drift on the wind? Then cut the safety tether. Birds can’t fly with anchors tied to their wings. That is the only thing truly crazy.” Somehow, he kept mocking my reasoning again and again as if I was the one who wasn’t making any sense.
I shook my head again and stepped back once more, “But why? Why tell me all of this? Who are you? Why are you telling me these things? What’s the point of all of this?” I asked almost in a panic. His words were like sweet sick syrup dragging my mind in some kind of thick honey and deluding my rational. I felt that if I let myself get carried away in his current, I would undeniably drown with his thick words of hope clogging my lungs. It would be a sweet death, but an end, nonetheless.
“Why?” he asked in bewilderment. “What do you mean by why?”
I froze and felt the frigid air leave my lungs, “Well…I…you know…umm…” Why? I didn’t get it either. For some reason that question no longer held any meaning, “Well then, ah, what about who you are? Who are you?”
He chuckled brightly behind his mask and not for the first time this night I had to wonder just what it is he found so terribly funny. “That one is easy as well.” He tapped the side of his head with his finger a few times. “Let’s play a game then.”
“What?” I asked, not able to follow his chaotic thoughts.
“Yeah, a game! Obviously, you know how to play one.” He drifted towards me again, way too light on his feet than any man enslaved by gravity should be.
“I mean…it would depend on the game,” I stuttered in confusion.
“No worries, it’s super easy. It’s a guessing game, or I suppose a game of chase.”
“Chase?” I have asked more questions in the last fifteen minutes alone than I think I have in the last five years.
“Yup!” he cheered back merrily. “Guess is chasing after unknown answers, right? So that means you have to chase me into the unknown. Since I’m the answer and all. Obviously.”
“Wh-” I stuttered again. “What does that even mean? You want me to chase after you, a stranger, in this city at night?” I asked while gesturing to the silent street before us.
He looked around briefly as if only just now really recognizing where he was, “Mmm, no. It’s too…well too limiting.” What was that supposed to mean? “Instead, let’s play up there.” He pointed up at the sky again this time, as though space was a reasonable option.
I glanced incredulously at the dark mirk of clouds above me illuminated by a sliver of moon that occasionally shone out. “The sky? How am I to reach you there?”
He sighed and shook his head. “You’re honestly so slow at that. Keep up, will you? Otherwise, this game is going to get too boring.”
Still, my mind panicked. “Well…well directions. I need directions then. Left, or right?” I asked knowing I was the one who wasn’t making sense now.
“Neither,” He chuckled.
“Neither? What then…straight?”
He only laughed louder at that. “What sort of strange direction is that?” His feet eased so naturally off the ground that I almost didn’t even question the bizzarity of the occurrence. When the abnormality of it caught up to my brain, I tripped backward slightly and found my ability to speak temporarily stolen from shock. He effortlessly leaned back against nothing but translucent air and looked down at me through his dreary mask. “Just follow me. I’ve already told you the rules on how to play; think your happy thought, abandon any notion of ground, and find your Never ever land. If you can catch me, if you can find me in the world of lost things, I’ll consider it your win and give you my name.”
“Wait, wha--” I began, but he was already slowly drifting higher.
“Nope! I’ve already started! Catch me if you can!” And with that he drifted higher and higher, circling around on the wind as easily as a fish of the sea.
“Wait!” I shouted after him, but he was already gone, disappeared into the late misty shadows of midnight England. I struggled to chase after him, but I didn’t even know where to turn and look. He went up not left or right. How was I supposed to follow? Up was a direction that was solely restricted from me the day I was born a human. He should know that. So what did he mean? Did he really intend for me to simply lose my footing and float after him as if gravity had no meaning? The mere thought was absurd. He couldn’t mean what he had said in a literal sense could he? No, no he couldn’t. It didn’t make sense.
But he literally did fly, it was right before my very eyes. Was it a trick of the light? Was it a hallucination conjured from a tired mind? No, I couldn’t quite trust that outcome either. I felt fine. My mind was as clear as ever even before he came from out of nowhere. Maybe what he said was him simply messing with me, but something tingling on the edge of my skin told me that all of this was very, very real.
I clench my eyes and squatted to the ground while roughly pressing the heel of my palms onto either side of my head. Despite myself, despite my best efforts, my turbulent thoughts instantly pulled out the one thing I didn’t never wanted to think about ever again.
You’re such a child. An ungrateful and pestering child. Have you no shame? I’ve told you time and time again. You need to grow up. Act your age for once! Stop wasting my time on such useless little dreams. Wake up! It’ll do you good.
But it didn’t do me good. It didn’t do me good at all. Here I was cold, shivering, starving, and all alone. I gave up my fears, I gave up my dreams, I even gave up my hopes. But what did that leave me with now? Nothing. Nothing but a scratchy grey shall, a meager morsel of stolen bread, and a quiet and slow mind. I tried. I tried as hard as I could to be the most grown up adult there ever was that had all the magical answers right at my fingertips.
But I wasn’t. I wasn’t grown up. I never was. I’m still just a scared little kid. It’s not like I can just wake up one morning and decide that I understand everything now. I don’t. I don’t understand a single thing. I don’t know why this world is the way it is. I don’t know why the sea rises and falls or where the snow comes from or why birds feel the need to sing. I don’t know why a mother’s lullaby sounds sweeter than anything else in the world. I don’t know. I don’t know why or even how to grow up even if someone asked me to. I tried. I tried as hard as my child like mind could. But if this…if this is what a grown up’s life is like, then I don’t want it.
I gripped my hands tighter by my side and stared wide at the pitch-dark sky above me. My mind was racing at a thousand miles per second, desperately wanting to follow the stranger up into the shifting clouds.
Clouds? Who said clouds were above? Who decided that? Who said roads were paved? Who demanded that light be seen? Who said the earth was solid? Who said humans can’t fly? I can’t. I can’t live in this world of restrictions anymore. Everything is so boxed, so trapped, so unbearably rational. Where is the adventure that called my heart years ago? Where was the horizon that was warmer than sun kissed skin? Where was it? Where was the light I found in this dark and dreary midnight sky?
Mere reality was such a burden. I didn’t want to hold on to it any longer. The weight on my mind was simply too much. I couldn’t handle it. I couldn’t fathom it. Why must mornings start the day? Why is fire hot? Why must we all get along? Why can’t birds laugh? Why must I grow up? Why is ground hard and air soft? Why must I sleep? Why must I wake? Why can’t the earth be flat? Why can’t the stars be the sea? Why? Why? Why? Why?
Why? What do you mean by why?
Suddenly his voice rang out in my head and caused a sharp breath of chilly air to enter my lungs. A frigid shiver ran down my spine as I tried to make sense of his question. I clenched my eyes and looked down
No. I’d rather…I’d rather dream. No need for whys and reasons. Mere reality was such a burden. I’d rather laugh at it and remain ignorant to everything dark around me. I’d rather lose myself in frivolous happy thoughts until I’ve completely lost my footing altogether and simply fly.
Yes. Yes, fly like the wild child who plays silly games with random passerbys simply to pass the time. Fly like the kid who mocks reason and logic as if reality wasn’t even relevant. Fly like the mysterious dark stranger who claimed to have a home amongst the ever-bright stars and lowly clouds. Yes, like someone who danced in rainbows, tidepools, and firelit caves. He was someone who was free. Freer than any other being I’d ever seen before. So free that even the laws of reality couldn’t bind him.
Yeah, that sounds about right. It would be much better than becoming empty in a world chuck full of mere stuff.
So let’s give it all up. Who needs to grow up? Who needs safety? Who needs their precious colorful marbles? No, no let’s instead live in a world where tin thimbles are treasures and seawater crocodiles keep the time. Let’s travel to the land where Indians dance in smoky nights and pirates lurk at high tide. I want to see jealous mermaids sing in lagoons and pixies ring bells in your ear as they dance. I want to live in a world where trust is a foreign concept, but the thought of doubt never even existed. I want to climb trees, scale cliff sides, surf waves, and accidently lose the ground beneath my shoes.
Because if…just if, that miraculous world was real and if, if it was all that this mysterious stranger said it was, then…then wouldn’t it be worth it to go? Wouldn’t it be worth it to try? I would bet my empty heart on it. I would bet my life on it.
No, I bet my rationality on it.
With a newfound vigor I opened my eyes to try only to be shocked to find that I wasn’t in England at all. No, I wasn’t…I wasn’t anywhere. Instead, I found myself stuck in a mirth like cloud of shadows that snatched at my hair and laughed at my freckled nose. I stretched out my stiff fingers and toes to make sure I was really where I thought I was while the mists continued to dance around my skin. I yelped when a particularly hard pull at my hair stung my scalp and sent me drifting further in the dark.
“Wait!” I called, “Wait, just a second” I tried to protest while attempting to gain my bearings. But that was proving to be very difficult for every time I looked down, I was actually looking up. Again the shifting fog laughed in light levity as they continued teasing and pulling.
“I said stop!” I shouted again. This time a tug on my arm pulled me further along. “I can’t right now! I have to find someone! I am looking for a boy! A small childish boy who flies and likes to play games!” I pulled away from them and attempted to drift higher up. I reached my hands out in the thin wisps of smoke and let them wrap around my fingers so that I could yank them back and away. They seemed to ignore everything I was saying as they laughed and laughed at my expense even as I pulled them away.
“Why you’re all impossible!” I huffed before shoving my way out through the clouds until I reached a bright clearing. The sudden light stung my eyes causing me to clench them shut and recede back a bit. This apparently gave the mocking shadows behind me opportunity to tug at my brown hair once more.
“Ow!” I snapped back in pain.
A new laugh sounded this time outside from the dark mists, “Ha-ha! Be careful! They like to drag drifters miles away. They’re dangerous to people such as you and me.”
I quickly opened my eyes to see a mischievous youth grinning deviously through his innocent face. His hands were eased behind his head and his feet were still carelessly brushing the low, low white clouds. “Looks like you managed to find me,” he said lightly. “I honestly thought you’d be too chicken to do it.”
I could only float there in shocked silence as I realized I managed to do it without even noticing. “It’s not easy to find things in Neverland you know. But alright then, a deal is a deal.” And with that he quickly flew over to my direction till his face was a couple inches from mine.
With an even wider smile, he whispered loudly into my ear, “They call me Peter Pan. And this is Neverland. Welcome, little lost one.”