PAN, PETER PAN - PART ONE

by Cormac Foster Morrison

Gunter Ringelhan had just managed to peel the green tights off his legs, despite being stuck weightlessly pressing against the ceiling of his studio apartment, bringing about a sudden return of gravity as abrupt as its departure 30 seconds earlier, when the doorbell rang at exactly the same time as his full-body slam against the floor.

The bell ring was surprising. He didn't know he had a doorbell since no one ever visited. The tinny dink-booooong distracted him momentarily from the remarkable turn of events: one minute indulging a Peter Pan fantasy, the next peeling ceiling paint chips off your forehead. He rolled over into a sitting position feeling the cold linoleum against his bare ass and the bottom of his recently shaven scrotum.

"Dink-booooong!!" His own anxiety added a note of impatience to the doorbell's ring. Gunter scrambled to his feet. His left knee gave slightly but responded to the instant weight-shift to his right leg. Both knees and one elbow were scraped and an indiscriminate swelling was beginning on his left thigh above the knee. He limped to the bathroom door and yanked his one towel off the hook and wrapped it around his waist. His belly stuck out above the towel and below the tight green tunic he wore matching the green feathered cap that sat askew on his bald head.

"DINK-BOOOOOONG!!!! KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK." Whoever it was they were getting impatient. He stumbled to the door and grabbed the knob while unlocking the bolt. He paused a second. He entertained a moment of dread at strangers and the coming social encounter since he knew he was hopelessly inept at dealing with both and left the chain in place. He cracked the door and gasped at the face he saw.

"Gunter Ringelhan?" Where had the voice come from? The "lips" if you could call them that had wiggled slightly and two-points of what looked like a tongue had flicked out and back in, but it hadn't seemed like anything like the syllables of his name had formed anywhere around that horrifying mouth. And the eyes?! There was a sound like the squeal of a pig coming from somewhere. Gunter realized that he had involuntarily farted the high-pitched noise.

Without waiting for an answer the toothless maw gaping at him through the crack in the door continued.

"We're from the JM Barrie Society of Greater NY, Queens chapter. We understand that you recently had an adventure with gravity and we'd like to have a short word with you. May we come in?"

The little child's voice inside Gunter's head squeaked: "WE?!?!?!"