PAN, PETER PAN - PART DEUX

by Cormac Foster Morrison

They sat on his couch, quiet and unmoving, while they waited for him to return from the bedroom with a different outfit. He sat on the creaky wooden chair opposite them.

The one that had first spoken to him through the crack in the door identified 'itself' as 'Sisterbertrille' (just like that, spoken as one word, with an emphasis on the 'ter' in 'sister'.) Its voice was neither feminine nor masculine so he took the name as an alias. This suspicion was confirmed when 'her' partner introduced himself as 'Thatpoppinswoman' in a deep basso-profundo. He, on the other hand, was decidedly male, large and meaty, and quite hairy, having a rich mustache and beard, and curlicued neck whiskers, front and back. He wore a light suit jacket with a soft collar and wide tie and looked a little like an older, fatter version of Lord Byron without any of the dashing romanticism. 'Sisterbertrille' was altogether indescribable in the full-flower of her person. Having come out from behind the door, she looked like a wingless bug dressed in something out of the Martha Graham collection with various scarves and leotard stretched here and there over antennae and protrusions of exoskeleton. One 'leg' looked partially damaged and lay propped at an odd angle on Gunter's old brown-leather ottoman. They stared across at one another in silence until a voice again issued seemingly from nowhere.

"We try to appear to you in a manner consistent with the architecture of your understanding of space and time," 'Sisterbertrille' popped and clicked.

Gunter stared at them, disbelieving. "Um...nice job." He felt the sweat breaking out under his arms and on his forehead.

'Thatpoppinswoman' cut in. "I-if you only knew how hard it was to even maintain these forms you might appreciate the effort more."

Gunter noticed that he had a strange way of gesturing grandly, like he was on the stage of some magnificent playhouse of a different era; as if the assumption of this alternate form sitting across from him governed not only his appearance but also limited his behavior to a specific persona.

Gunter's evening had already taken a turn for the strange when the adult-sized Peter Pan costume that he bought in the Halloween costume store on 6th that afternoon apparently gave him the ability to fly as soon as he finished putting it on. Mind you, he had had no intention of wearing it to any Halloween party. He had been day-dreaming about it since the day he had seen it in the same itinerant Halloween costume shop the year before. He couldn't pin-point the exact source of his desire to be Peter Pan though he assumed it to be a fantasy based in some psycho-sexual childhood trauma. But he had desperately wanted to avoid any suspicion of irregularity on his part that might overtake the bullying and gossipy postman, say, as a result from even buying the costume from the internet out of season. His 'perfect' plan was to wait until Halloween and buy the costume while volunteering a certain squeamishness about 'dress-up' parties to the salesgirl and, in order to avoid any skepticism about his choice of costume, buy another costume (he had chosen what he thought was the most manly one - a pirate!) to throw her off the scent. She hadn't seemed to care one way or another.

The trip to the ceiling where he had knocked his head and the subsequent fall to the floor which had knocked the wind out of him brought about either some extended hallucination or a certain open-mindedness to what could only be thought of as the incredible circumstances that had brought these two creatures before him to his couch. He decided to go with it one way or another. What's the worst that could happen?

"Can I offer you some tea or something?"

'Thatpoppinswoman' gasped indignantly and after a beat 'Sisterbertrille' unceremoniously and without warning ejaculated several pints of yellow paste from 'her' mouth-hole onto the floor in front of Gunter splashing his bare feet and collecting almost immediately as a warm stickiness between his toes.

"YOU WOULD DO WELL NOT TO PATRONIZE US, WE HAVE BEEN SENT! SENT ON A MISSION TO TEST YOU. AND THIS TEST HAS ALREADY BEGUN."

"Where was that damned voice COMING from?"