Captain Jas. Hook, by himself

     It’s not my real name, of course, not all of it. Even in this place where anything is possible, it would be too much of a coincidence for a man called Hook to start wearing one after losing his hand to a crocodile. I chose the name and the hook because I had already decided to become a pirate and they seemed to fit.
     It was the only course I could take, piracy, to ensure my freedom. That must sound odd on a island where you can make anything happen just by imagining it, but it’s true. As a pirate I could escape to the open seas for months at a time, bound by no other law than my own will. I’ve known moments of pure ecstasy, the utter abandon of running at full sail before a strong wind, no land in sight, surrounded by the waves and completely at the mercy of the cruel, beautiful sea. At those times I loved this terrible place, and understood why I could never go back.
     That’s why it’s called Neverland, you see. It lures you in with the promise of freedom, and then when it has you in its grip it forces you to turn and confront all the constraints that life itself places on you, all the big fat Nevers. You can never really go back, that’s the first. Some people try it, and it’s not until they’ve left that they realise they’ve left their heart, or their soul, or whatever part of them it is that makes life worth living, behind them. Once you’ve seen the colours, tasted and smelt them and felt the rush they give you, it’s impossible to let go. But very soon you realise that they can never wholly satisfy you either. A land ruled by imagination is never quite real enough. And so you’re trapped.
     That crocodile. I feared it more than anything else. They say it ticks because it had swallowed a clock, but that isn’t true. It’s the crocodile itself that ticks, counting down the hours, minutes and seconds until your time’s up and you’re faced with your own mortality, from which even Neverland can’t save you.
     I tried to make the best of it, and I almost succeeded. I kept two things only from my old life: my name, James, and my ardent desire for good form. They were enough to keep me from losing myself altogether in the heady madness – they were my true identity, not the hook and the clothes and the flamboyant personality I adopted to be in keeping with the place. I assembled my ship and my crew and spent as much time as I could at sea, and I was almost happy. But inevitably the need for food and water would drive me back to the island, to the crocodile and, worse still, to him.
     You know who I mean. Him. The boy who never grew up. He understood the power of the island better than anyone, and he wanted it for himself. And he was dangerous. He hated me with the irrational loathing of a child for a grown man, and I hated him for what he could do to me. If he controlled the island he could take my last refuge away from me and turn it into a waking nightmare until I fell to my knees and begged for the crocodile, and he would never even grasp the enormity of what he’d done. He was only a child fleeing a nameless fear, but I had stayed longer, I had grown up there. I knew the name of the fear and how right he had been to run away. The island was an escape for both of us, and he would have taken it away from me without a second’s hesitation, just because he wanted to. Yes, I hated him for that.
     There were others like him who had run away, and he started to draw them to himself. He had a charismatic personality and a flair for the dramatic, and he knew how to win a person’s allegiance. They loved him, and soon they were his lost boys. He was the reason they couldn’t leave, it was his power that held them here. He became the island to them.
     In spite of his charm and his childish innocence, he was dangerously unstable. He was plagued by nightmares, and rarely slept. I lost several of my crew to him, and he killed them with so little thought that he would never even mention it to his lost boys afterwards. But other times he would tell them fabulous yarns about his adventures, which had manifestly never happened and which he expected them to believe without question. He often kept them without food for days at a time, and as his power grew he used his imagination to alter their shape. They were submissive to his every whim, totally dependent on him.
     Then the girl came. I had already begun to think that for the good of us all, for the sake of the island, he had to be killed, and she was what made my mind up at last. She and her two brothers weren’t lost like the others, and they didn’t come to the island as runaways. He brazenly went back there and brought them here himself, and in so doing he went too far. If he was prepared to rob reality to feed his growing power, I knew he had to be stopped. There was more than that, though. The two boys were children still, but she was just entering her girlhood, just becoming aware of the future, and of everything she could be. I saw it, and I determined that he shouldn’t be able to hold her prisoner. I knew she wasn’t for me. She still knew where to find her mother, and there was a strong chance that, once released, she would attempt to return. And if she stayed, she would never grow any older, while I was already a man, too far removed from her. But at least I could give her the chance to make that choice for herself. I determined that Pan had to die. And then I ruined the first chance I got.
     I don’t know why I did it. I had thought myself above an act so low, but he always brought out the worst in me. Like so many lunatics, he had his own code of honour, and that day at the lagoon when he reached out his hand to me, he genuinely wanted to help me up the rock, so that we would be on equal footing before he killed me. And instead of taking his hand, I attacked. It was bad form, and I knew it the moment I saw the look on his face. The triumph I always thought I would feel as I clawed at him and saw his blood running down my hook turned to nausea in my mouth. Bad form. I left him for dead on the rock and went away with my shame.
     For weeks afterwards I tortured myself. How had I fallen so low? I had wanted him dead, yes, but was it worth the price when I had to betray my deepest principles in order to accomplish it? I was secretly pleased to learn later that he had cheated death once again. I didn’t want it to end like that – I had to live with myself after he was dead. For a while I considered calling the whole thing off. Surely it could not be good form for a grown man to kill a boy. But he was no ordinary boy. He was a demon who would destroy us all to feed his megalomania, and he had to be stopped. Already, as his power grew, the island was fading. I could feel it in myself as I paced the deck, sweating and fighting the encroaching melancholy with every step. I became short-tempered with my crew, threatening them with my hook on numerous occasions. All I could think of was Pan, and the sickening island, and the girl.
     Deep down I hoped she would not go back. She was too good for that place, and I knew what it would do to her. I had seen too many like her, choked and swamped into a colourless existence by the demands placed on them, their former beauty and vitality faded to a shadow only visible in fleeting glimpses if you knew where to look. Here, with the island restored and surrounded by its vivid colours, she could be free to be what she wanted to be. And although I had wild dreams of keeping her on the ship with me, I knew that it was an impossibility. I would watch her from afar, and that would be enough for me.
     I planned my second attempt more carefully, and the ambush went like clockwork. I had no desire to hurt those boys, and certainly not her, but there was no other way. I would have taken all of them under my protection if I could, but he had them all so deeply spellbound that they could never have seen me as anything other than an enemy. I am not a man that little children can love, and I had seen the contempt in the girl’s eyes. It clawed at me as I watched how they swarmed around Smee. Yes, they loved him, and if there had been more time, perhaps he could have helped me break Pan’s hold on them. But there was no time.
     My first intention had been to use them as bait to lure him out. But then the boy Slightly provided me with a better way, or so I thought. I slid to the bottom of his tree, right into my enemy’s lair at last, and found him asleep and defenceless, oblivious to what had happened to his disciples. I nearly turned back then. All my scruples rose to the surface – demon or not, he looked just like a sleeping child. I would go back and wait until we could fight on an equal footing, hook against sword. What stopped me was a stab of anger that someone so foul, so evil, could look so innocent. No wonder he deceived those children so easily. Even I had been almost taken in. He had to die before he could do it again, to me or to anyone else. Whether by hook or by poison, the end result would be the same, and I poured five drops from my berceuse into his cup.
     I don’t know how he survived but I suspect that three-inch whore on wings that always hovered around him had something to do with it. I already knew I had lost when he pulled back his cloak and revealed himself standing by the mast. I had clawed him and I had poisoned him, and he still refused to die! I could not kill him. But I made my last stand anyway, conscious of the girl’s eyes as she stood watching. She’d never know I was doing all this for her, and never understand if she did know, but I was determined she would see me go out fighting.
     "So, Pan," I said, "this is all your doing."
     "Ay, James Hook," came the stern answer, "it is all my doing."
     As I said, he had a flair for the dramatic. I felt that more needed to be said, something to mark the enormity of the struggle that was about to take place.
     "Proud and insolent youth, prepare to meet thy doom."
     "Dark and sinister man," he answered, "have at thee."
     Pan was very strong now. He blooded and disarmed me, and he could have ended it then and there, but he would not. His lunatic code forbade it, much as mine would have done. Were we so very different, he and I? Which was the lunatic and which the sane? Who was the hero and who was the villain? The island was becoming weak. I could feel its grip on me loosening, letting the memories of everything I had escaped flood back on me. The degradation, the banality, the ridiculous expectation of conformity to an arbitrary code, the Spartan disregard for self and individuality. The island had shielded me from all that, and now Pan was going to take it for himself and there would be no shelter, not for me, not for the lost boys, not for my beloved girl and not for any of the ones who were still back there and knew how to dream of safety. And as the memories came back, they brought another, fresher one, the one I had most longed to forget. My failure at the lagoon. He was my enemy, but how could he be the villain of the piece when he had never besmirched his honour as I had? I longed for him to fall, for something to reassure me that I was fighting a just battle, although doomed. And I got my one satisfaction, just one. When Pan kicked me, we were once more on an even footing. Bad form on both sides, and at least I could die with dignity, knowing that my shame was cancelled out by his.
     When I went over the side, I felt everything I had ever cared for in that place falling away from me. My ship, my men, my love, all gone. They all thought I was dead because they knew the crocodile was down there. I didn’t know until it was too late, but I didn’t care anymore. I’d already lost everything. I landed in the water and saw the great beast bearing down on me, the ticking thundering in my ears and resonating in time to my own heartbeat, and I spread my arms wide and welcomed it. How deeply ironic. Apparently my time had not yet come, for the beast ducked down and came up under me so that I found myself spread-eagled across its back as it bore me away from the ship. I lost consciousness as it swam, and when I came to again I was lying on a sandy beach, the waves lapping around me and a crab staring at me from a short distance away.
     I’ve stayed here by myself ever since. It’s not so bad, all things considered – I’ve made a small boat, and although I can’t reach the open sea as I used to be able to, I can still put out from shore when I feel like it and the sea permits. There’s plenty of food and water. None of it’s quite real, of course, but it’s better than the alternative. Neverland. It can’t save you, and it’s never enough, but you can never really go back. I’d be almost content here, almost happy as I was before, except for one thing. I know the crocodile knows where to find me, and I’ve accepted that now. I just pray to whatever infernal powers are still left that it comes for me before Pan takes the island, that I’ll be gone from here to whatever oblivion awaits before all this comes under his control. Because when that happens, not one single man, woman or child, either here or there, will be safe again. Never.