Now

So this twink in green tights swoops through your window, drugs you, then whisks you away to an island with gnashing crocodiles and famished cannibals and some madman with a rusty hook for a hand—that’s not the story you’re used to, but it’s the story Peter’s heard many times before. When he was four, Momma sat at the end of his bed. When she finished telling one story, she began another story similar to but quite unlike other stories, because those other stories weren’t real at all. Red Riding Hood never made it to her grandmother’s house (woodsman, axe) and Snow White never left her cottage (seven dwarves, chloroform). Harry Potter became a dead beat dad (depression, diabetes).

When Momma mounted bars on his windows, Peter was relieved.

No Neverland for him.

*

Peter was twelve when his grandma died. He and Momma had stopped by the ocean after attending her funeral in Maine. At the beach, Peter fell in love.

Salty, reeking sea. Scattered relics sloshed to shore: shells, crab legs, gossamer splats of seaweed. The sound of waves as they crashed and frothed.

Not for the first time did he sense something out there vast and waiting, but for the first time he found himself aching to dive in.

When an incoming wave of sea foam skimmed his toes, he blushed.

It’s full of shit, Momma announced. She took his hand and led him back to their bench. Fish poop, people poop. There’s trash everywhere. And there’s sharks and jellyfish and undertow—

What’s undertow?

See the waves? How they go in and out? Peter nodded. Undertow is that going out part. If you get near it in the water, you’ll get sucked beneath the waves and drown. She snapped her fingers. Just like that.

How do people stay away from it?

They don’t.

But look, Peter said pointing out to the horizon, that guy’s surfing but not getting sucked under, so he must know where the undertow is, so he can avoid it, right?

Momma shook her head. He’s taking a risk. You can’t be safe out there, no matter what you do.

But what if I just—

You? You’re not getting in that cesspool.

He opened his mouth.

I can’t handle this right now.

Peter couldn’t move.

She put her hand to head, trembling. Not so soon after the services. I just couldn’t take it if something went wrong—you’d catch Ebola, I’d have a heart attack. You don’t wanna be going to Momma’s funeral next, do you?

He shook his head.

There was a small silence, then Momma rifled through her large canvas bag. Sand is way cooler, you know. You can make a castle. Here, I’ll show you. She handed him a small bucket and shovel, and Peter held them tight.

Later that night, they shared a bed at some cheap motel. It was storming.

He could just slip away, go wild. Their motel wasn’t that far from the beach. What if he ran in the rain, through the waves? What if he swam? He could almost hear the thunder that would groan overhead as he at last dove deep into the water, thunder booming then muffling as he sank towards the pulsing rainbow lights of Neverland—

Then in a flash of lightening, he saw everything. The motel’s bruised-banana walls. Their wooden nightstand. Momma sleeping aside him, turned away.

An eye nesting in her hair.

Veined, gooey, and lidless, glaring at him from the back of her head.

Threads of her hair stuck across the sclera.

He couldn’t move.

No matter how much he told himself to yell, he couldn’t.

__________

Seth Wade is a philosopher in the ethics of technology pursuing his PhD at Florida State University. You can read his poetry and prose in publications like Strange Horizons, McSweeney’s, Hunger Mountain Review, Witness, and elsewhere. He is a Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize nominee, and a reader for the Southeast Review. Find more of his work or contact him at https://www.sethwade.info.