Peter Pan to the Rescue

Chapter 1
The Diagnosis

Chapter Description: When Michael Barrie, a former adult who is now 12 thanks to the Age-Regression-Virus, receives a devastating diagnosis from his doctor, he fears as much for his future, as for his relationship with his wife. Can Peter Pan help?

The two persons waiting in the doctor‘s office, could easily be mistaken for mother and son. Indeed, the child, a boy around twelve, fidgeted nervously, while the adult showed a level of calmness, usually coming with maturity. Both were deeply worried, but showed it in different ways.

“Mr. and Mrs. Barrie,” the doctor greeted them as he walked in. “I’m sorry for the delay. I had to check something.”

“Of course,” Mary Barrie said. “We understand.”

“How bad is it?” Michael asked, feeling little patience for conversation.

Dr. Boucicault sat down and went through the file a last time. When he looked up, Michael could see it all in his eyes.

“I’m afraid the virus hits you worse than expected,” the doctor revealed. “The test indicates that you will bounce below one year of biological age.”

Michael felt like he had been hit in the stomach with a sledgehammer. He had hoped he had bounced already, he had feared he would half again his current age, but this … Had he stood, he would have collapsed. Sitting, he just sank deeper into the chair. Silence had fallen over the room like a rubber mat and Michael could hear his heart beating.

“How much below one?” Mary broke the silence.

“Close to half a year, but not below,” the doctor explained. “I know a few months can mean a lot, but the tests aren’t such exact. Also remember, that there are cases, where the virus stops … It is still too unpredictable.”

The Age-Regression-Virus. Michael’s thoughts wandered. Hitting unpredictable with different results, leaving its victims as prepubescent, eternal children of different ages, sometimes in mind, too, sometimes even of the other gender. Its appearance had been a major change to society. While deciphering it had allowed companies like BioSci to offer humanity eternal life at an age they desired, so far no one had been able to cure the affected. Many scientists even claimed doing so was impossible due to the damages in the mechanism responsible for aging after a certain point being too extensive.

“There are positive points, though.” The doctor began.

Michael’s head snapped back up.

“Positive points?” He couldn’t believe it. “Positive points? I will be a baby. I will barely be able to move. My life is over. My freedom. My …”

He felt his adolescent voice rising breaking.

“Calm down Michael,” Mary told him, laying a hand on his shoulder. “Everything will be fine.”

Michael felt shocked. If his wife had intended it or not, these words could also have been directed to a child. He stared for a moment at the large hand on his shoulder. Once he had asked her for it and she had agreed. He could see the ring. His own lay on the table near their bed, hanging on a necklace since it was too large for his finger. He still wore it every day, indeed this was the one time he had forgotten it. This simple fact suddenly seemed like a bad omen he had formerly ignored.

“It is positive that there is no sign of mental regression.” The doctor continued, as if the scene hadn’t happened. “No matter the state of the body, there are machines which allow you a lot independence.”

Michael had seen an example of it once. On the casewalk in front of the local shopping center something had crossed his way he had at first thought to be some sort of modern wheelchair, only to be shocked moments later, when he had saw all the details. It probably had been one once, but had been heavily modified. Instead of a seat for an adult, this one had a seat for an infant, raised enough to allow its occupant to be nearly on eye-level.

Michael had wanted to look away, but had been unable to. The ARV-victim had directed the vehicle skillfully, still he wondered if it hadn’t been better for her to simply be pushed around in a pram. She had attracted so much attention, that he would have died of shame in her position. Now it could very well be his fate.

Michael was dazed. There was more talk, but it seemed to be only between his wife and the doctor. Instead of listening he looked at his shoes. Black shoes with shoelaces, neat and sensible. They looked grown up compared to the cheaper sneakers, especially these with velcro fasteners.

Were they already getting looser?

 ***

They made their way home in silence. Both lost in thoughts. Michael had driven them to the doctor, using adapters on the wheel and the pedals, but now he didn’t feel like he was able to do so at all. Maybe this was for the best. There was no law against ARV-Victims driving, but while they still shrank a sudden regression could make them lose control. In some cases, people had lost up to ten years in an hour.

“I know how hard it is, Michael,” Mary tried to end the silence. “But you should remember what the doctor had said. You show no signs of mental regression. There will still be a lot you can do.”

“Like Wendy?”

His wife didn’t reply.

Of course, she had thought of their friend. They had shared long evenings with Wendy and her husband George Darling, drinking wine and talking about the world. Then – like Michael – she had been infected with the ARV. At first it had been all right. Wendy had never been a pushover, something they had all admired about her. They had continued their evenings together and once Wendy had even jokingly told them not to call the police, when she drank wine while around 16. When the doctors had told her, she would bounce around 5, she had faced it with dignity. She had even begun trying to find ways to remodel the house to fit her size.

It was as she was around 10, that George had first noticed her acting strange. Nothing big. It had just been a particular dress she had seen in a store. Its gay color and motif of a wolf pup had fit her biological age more than her actual years, but she had wanted with total enthusiasm, despite knowing that she would soon be too small to wear it. A while later, during one of hers and George’s regular walks through the park, while wearing her new, already slightly too large dress, she had suddenly insisted visiting the playground. Her husband and been adamantly against it at first, but Wendy – still willful – had just run to it and begun playing with the children there. She had laughed as loud as anyone of them.

It had been a slide downwards from there. Wendy more and more often forgot George was her husband, or that she was in reality an adult. When John, her younger brother – who also had begun showing signs of the ARV – had come to visit, she had constantly asked him about Nana, their old newfoundland dog, they had had when they were still children. John hadn’t had the heart telling her the truth, so he had told her she was back home. When George sat in front of the TV with her, wanting her to watch the News so she would remember, she switched to the Disney Channel and others, getting in love with My Little Ponies.

George had tried his best, but it had been a lost battle from the start. The last time Michael and Mary had visited them, Wendy had finally bounced at 5 and gifted them both with a flower picked from the garden, grinning at them the innocent smile of a child without a sign of their wise old friend. George had enrolled her in a Kindergarten soon after. According to him, it was best she spent her energy there, but it also allowed him to resume his job as banker. Her teacher praised her as happy, enthusiastic part of the group and she already had a lot of friends in.

Now it could very well be Michael’s fate.

Michael noticed he had begun to cry and angrily wiped the tears out of his eyes. Only then he noticed they had arrived at their house. He jumped out of the car, ignoring Mary calling him from behind. He raced upstairs, not into their common bed-room, but the guest-room. Crying even more, Michael locked the door and let himself fall on the large couch.

***

Michael awoke later. How much later he couldn’t tell, only that it was nearly dark. Drowsy he opened the large window and starred out, letting the cooler, but still warm night-air brush over him. It helped. He felt clearer now, more level-headed and ashamed about his childish behavior. Silently he unlocked the door and went to his and Mary’s bedroom, assuming to find her there.

He didn’t, but instead found his wedding ring on the necklace at his side of the bed, where he had left it. Michael took it up and read the tiny inscription. In love forever. He felt even more ashamed. He and Mary were married. They were supposed to go through this together. Husband and wife. They always had gone through a lot already, like when they found out they couldn’t have children on their own.

Mary had even told him she might let herself turn his age, if it meant preventing their dynamic changing too much into a classic son/mother one. This was of course of the table now, but Michael still felt touched, when he remembered Mary’s loyalty to him and even more ashamed of not having thought about all the things she had to go through right now.

Hoping to find his wife downstairs, Michael put the necklace on and walked to the steps, when he heard her voice. He had never eavesdropped on her before and didn’t want to do so now, still he found himself standing at the top of the stairs, watching his wife sit on the couch in the living room and listened.

“I don’t know if I can handle it,” Mary said. “George, I’m not as strong as you.”

Michael froze.

“I tried speaking with him, but he just shut himself off,” she continued. “Somehow I’m even thankful for it. I don’t think I could have found the right words … any words for him. I can’t even find them for me. He is going to be an infant, even if his mind holds. What will be left of the man I loved?”

Silent as he had come, Michael crept back into the guestroom and again locked the door behind him. The necklace with the ring around his neck seemed to weight a ton. Tears were again running down his face, as he pressed his forehead against the door. Whom had he been fooling? His marriage was over with this day. Soon their relationship would consist out of Mary constantly helping him, like a nurse, a nanny, a mother … Michael recoiled from the last thought, feeling his head becoming drowsy.

“Boy, why are you crying?” A young voiced asked.

Shocked Michael turned around.

A boy stood in the open window. Barefoot, dressed in what seemed to be autumn leaves and spiderwebs, carrying a sword at his belt.

“I’m not a boy,” was the first thing a stunned Michael managed to say. “And I don’t cry.”

The boy grinned.

“I’m not Peter,” he said. “And I’m not a boy either!”

This left Michael open-mouthed and speechless. Who was this boy? How had he climbed to the window in the first floor? Before he could ask, his expression caused the strange boy who called himself Peter – or rather not Peter – to laugh. A little ball of light, the size of a child’s fist, flew past the boy into the room. He laughed again and jumped after it … only fly through the room. Not believing his eyes, Michael watched the boy fly after the light, turning pirouettes in the room, before settling on a cupboard.

“You are Peter Pan!” He said, as he had overcome the shock.

“The one and only!” The boy replied grinning, showing all his milk teeth.

Michael starred up, noticing that the ball of light had taken place on the lamp, easily outshining it. He remembered half-forgotten legends, told on playgrounds and in nurseries. Daydreams which had once been so real …

“A boring nursery you have here, not-a-boy!” Peter commented.

“I’m Michael Barrie,” Michael explained. “And it isn’t my nursery, it is my guest-room!”

Peter looked around in the rather bare room.

“No toys, no colors. Wouldn’t want to be a guest here!” He commented. “Do you hide from your mother making you vegetables for lunch?”

“I’m not hiding.” Michael insisted, knowing he pretty much lied. “I had an … an argument with my wife.”

Peter rolled his eyes.

“I like the not-game more than the wife-and-husband-game!” He noticed.

Just right now, Michael was prone to agree, still he had the urge to explain, if only because there was no one else he could speak to.

“We were by the doctor,” he explained. “It was bad.”

“Did he hit you with the little hammer?” Peter asked. “Did he want your tongue? Threaten you with a syringe? Or did he give your mother some foul-tasting medicine she threatens to give you, now? Doctors are mean. We play better doctors.”

“I have the age-regression-virus.”

“Sounds funny! What does it make?”

“It makes me younger.”

This caught Peter’s full attention. Like an acrobat he jumped off the cupboard, making a salto before landing crouched in front of Michael. When the boy rose again, the former adult noticed that he was a good bit larger than the eternal boy.

“You look perfect for me.” Peter noticed. “Were you bigger before?”

Michael suddenly remembered, that the boy in front of him was said to weed out children who were too big.

“Not much,” he lied quickly, an eye on the rather sharp blade at Peter’s side. “But now I’m shrinking even more. Soon I will be a baby!”

The eternal boy became silent, looking confused. Tinkerbell flew around Michael. A quick, bright light. Finally, she circled his head, only to hover in front of his face. He noticed her having the form of a girl. The fairy made a disgusted face and flew to Peter, landing on his shoulder. From his position, Michael could hear something like the tinkling of small bells.

“Tinkerbell says you don’t smell of fun or games,” Peter translated. “She thinks you smell as boring as an adult.”

“I haven’t felt like playing for a long time, because I shrink,” Michael lied quickly. “Before long I will be too young for games. I won’t even be able to walk.”

“Babies have games and toys,” Peter replied, “and they laugh a lot. Fairies are born from their first laughter!”

“How would you like to only be able to play baby games?” Michael argued. “To have a rattle instead of a sword?”

Michael fell silent and Peter seemed to think about something. The boy definitely wasn’t used thinking about something hard. His face was a scowl, but suddenly he lit up.

“I’ll help you!” Peter decided.

“How?” Michael asked skeptically.

“In Neverland we need no adult doctors!” The boy grew more and more enthusiastically, jumping on the couch. “We cure each other with pretend.”

“Pretend?”

“Sure!” Peter replied. “Like adults pretend to be lawyers and doctors and captains, or know stuff. Only we are better in it. We cure every wound of a pirate’s blade or gun. In Neverland you will get healthy without sour medicine!”

Michael was skeptical. Could he trust in a child’s game? Still, his doctor had given him up. Only a wonder could help him. Magic really. And there was magic, Peter proofed it. Where could be more magic than in Neverland?

“Great!” The former adult tried to sound enthusiastically, only to wonder. “How?”

Peter laughed and flew in the air. His dirty feet half a meter above the couch.

“We fly!”

“I can’t fly,” Michael replied.

“Every child can fly with fairy-dust!” Peter explained as if it was the simplest thing in the world. “Tink?”

The fairy flew around the boy and Michael could hear chorus of angry bells.

“Who cares if you don’t like his smell,” Peter argued. “He is a child and needs help! Hurry and we can go to more fun places.”

Tinkerbell seemed to think about it for a moment, then she raced down to Michael. Again, she hovered in front of his face, starring at his wedding ring, before giving him an angry glare.

She knows I’m an adult, Michael realized, and she doesn’t like me.

He tried to give her his best imitation of a boy’s smile, which caused the fairy to lift her nose in contempt. Still, she flew above him and let glittering fairy-dust rain down on him. The name was hardly fitting, for what came down on Michael seemed less like dust and more like tiny stars, settling in his hair, face and shirt. Just for a moment he felt wonder at such a beautiful sight.

“Now,” Peter drew his attention. “All you must do, is think a happy thought.”

“Happy thought?”

“Ice cream and Holidays. Your favorite toy and best game,” Peter explained. “Just think on it and it will lift you up!”

This didn’t help Michael. He didn’t like ice-cream too much. He didn’t go to school and didn’t even work, since he had become too young to do so in his job as clerk and the idea of never being able to work again, terrified him. Toys were something he didn’t even look at since had become an adult so many years ago.

“Your favorite place,” Peter tried to help further. “Pillow fighting.”

Michael thought about getting his last promotion. He had been happy then, knowing that he had earned it with hard work, but it meant nothing to him now. Then he thought about Mary. He remembered their last time in bed together before the ARV hit him, thought about the perfect way their bodies had joined. It would have lifted him into the stratosphere, had he still his former age – he was sure of it – but remembering it with a prepuberty-brain, lacking the necessary chemicals, it completely failed to excite him. Remembering making the taxes had the same effect.

“Playing until sundown,” Peter tried again, his voice beginning to sound a bit doubtful. “Your best moment!”

Michael knew he had to deliver, but ever since he started working, going to bed early had been quite relaxing. He tried to remember the best moment as a real child, but these memories were fuzzy. The best moment as an adult which had nothing to do with sex, though …

Michael closed his eyes and remembered his first car his parents had bought him. It had a flexible roof and when he had driven it around the freeway, through open, wild landscapes, the wind in his hair had given him a feeling of freedom he had had never felt before, almost as if … as if he could fly.

Michael heard Peter laughing and opened his eyes. The ground was a meter below his black shoes and the ceiling much too near.

“Told you, you could!” Peter cheered, flying to the window. “Come!”

A part in Michael recoiled from the idea of flying out of the window. A reasonable voice told him to forget it, to land, close the window and shut it. Yet, he had never been a coward. So, he dove past Peter, out of the window and around the tree standing in his garden. Hovering about it, he smiled proudly at Peter. As he did so, his eyes wanted to the lit windows of the living room in the ground floor. Mary would still be there, maybe worried, maybe even crying.

This thought made Michael drop a few inches and instinctively he turned around, looking to the moon instead. He knew, would his thoughts linger here, he wouldn’t be able to fly. He wouldn’t find a cure. He would become a baby. In Neverland though, they might save him, maybe even cure the ARV, allowing him to truly become Mary’s husband once more.

Michael grabbed his wedding ring hanging from his neck. His life with Mary. The best part of his adulthood, untainted by any disease. This, even more than concentrating on the memory of his first car, made him regain his height.

Laughing, Peter dashed past him and with a smile, Michael followed him.

“How do we get to Neverland?” He asked.

“Second star to the right, and straight on till morning!” Peter shouted. “Just follow me!”

Michael did, quickly learning that Peter was so much better in flying than he was. The eternal boy flew circles and pirouettes around the former adult. Often, he dove into clouds and when Michael followed, he turned out being behind, tagging him and making him give chase. Tinkerbell flew a bit aside, still pouting that she had to waste precious fairy-dust on an adult and Peter not even knowing, but neither of them really noticed.

Michael watched the distant, glittering lights of the city below and the stars above and found himself in awe. When Peter caught him unaware, wrestling with him midflight, making them both tumble, only to dash forward once again. Michael followed laughing wildly.

To be continued …