MY story

This is MY story, written in the hand of another man, on the borrowed prose of one more suited for spinning yarns and painting pictures. It is MY story though, do not mistake.
I am? Was? Will be? Alas I can no longer tell. My time been long? Short? Again I can no longer conceptualize. Soon I will no longer be an individual but a WE. Strange I know. Vague, opaque, odd there is a long list of descriptive terms for this but if you bear with this outlandish tale to the end you will understand. Time is of the essence? of no consequence? I will leave time alone for we no longer agree as we do not inhabit the same plane any longer.
MY story starts with a shadow. Not my shadow but another. Not the shadow of another person or a building or animal or plant but a shadow all the same. This shadow followed me? Haunted me? Again hard to bring into view the absolutes. Another indication that I am being assimilated. Do not worry for me. This is my wish, this assimilation. I brought it about. I caused it through a fantastic and epic effort.
Again I move away from my purpose. The shadow……..
June 1845, 7 years old:
I was playing alone in the park. This is not to say there were no other people in the park but that, as always, I was playing by myself. I was not shunned or ridiculed as it is with most who are alone. I shunned, I hated, I berated so people left me to my own devices. At seven I was more intelligent than most people, better educated than even the scholars of my time. I did not have the time or the will to deal with those who could not face me on an even field, which meant no one.
I did not love. Love did nothing but slow me down. I could not stand the embrace or even touch of another person for fear that they would rub their ignorance off on me. My mother cried my father cringed. This is how it should be. I am….was not one of them. I was something more.
Now that you understand me a little better I will get back to the shadow. I was playing alone, but not playing really. As I was still a child my body urged me to rid itself of the excess energy that it produced, so I found physical activities that strained my body removing the excess energy but also stimulated my mind. So playing for me meant building or discovering new way to traverse the large trees that inhabited my park. People still today use the system of zip lines, ropes, and engines I built at seven to move unnoticed through the park. Though today it is for adrenaline hunters and thrill seekers. Most can not even complete it.
It was the day of completion of this byway that we speak of. I had just placed the last screw in a chair that would with the help of centrifugal force carry me to the gates that I used to leave the park. I was admiring my genius as was my want when I noticed a shadow that did not belong there. It was not mine or from any of the various plants and trees in the vicinity. I looked around thinking that maybe some unlucky person had wandered near me. There was no one.
I thought to ignore this shadow but it did something very out of the ordinary, something decidedly unshadow like. It moved, but not just moved, it changed shape. When it was finished it almost matched my shadow completely. Needless to say, as someone who knew pretty much everything, this unknown sparked a curiosity and excitement as I had never known.
I moved first my right, then my left arm away from my body. This owner less shadow mimicked me completely. The same when I lifted my leg and also as I jumped. Now to clarify, it did not mimic my shadow as a shadow should, it mimicked me. As I watched, the shadow formed my face and then lifted from the ground to stand as tall as me.
Elation filled my soul. Something truly unknown, truly knew and it was my discovery, MINE! A flash of adoring, doting sycophants filled my mind. I knew then I would keep this to myself. If anyone ever knew of this discovery I would be famous, and famous meant dealing with people. I would not.
My jubilation ended shortly after. The shadow bent at the waist as I would though I still stood tall. It began writing in the dirt. As I watched a math problem presented. I carefully studied the problem as the shadow marred the dirt with a finger it should not have. It was unlike any problem I had before seen. It was complex with variables and equations I did not recognize. It ended with a question mark and I realized that for the first time I was completely stumped. ME, I was at an absolute loss for an answer, but more I could not follow any of it.
I squatted down, wrapped my hands around my knees and proceeded to try and work through it. I would be able to decipher the answer, there was no way I could not. I was the most intelligent being on the planet earth.
I sat in that position for hours staring at the equation. I, not once in the whole time, saw anything that I could use to work through it. I instinctively knew that it was solvable but I could not do it. For the first time in my life I felt stupid. I understood what it was like to be defeated, and for the first time in my life I cried.
The shadow held me, silently consoled me, but still to this day I do not have an answer to the challenge it gave me. From that day forward the shadow was always by my side. We became friends. It knew what I wanted or needed before I did and made it happen, but never gave an indication of why it was there. Maybe just looking for the companionship I had also always longed for.
Years went by. We spent all our time together. Working on problems and laughing, or at least I did, at the simpletons who were revered as genius by this world but lacked the intelligence and common sense to see the answers. Not to brag but WE found the cure to what you call cancer on my tenth birthday and threw it away.
It wasn’t until my fourteenth birthday that I realized that I hadn’t aged even a little since I had hit puberty in my twelfth year. This was a shock to me. I ran through my memory and could only find one common denominator, the shadow. I confronted it with my suspicions and it only shrugged its shoulders. I decided I could not care less and we went on with our lives.
More time passed. I never left my home anymore. I had become extremely wealthy through some lucrative decisions and dealings, all done from my home, so I had everything I needed. I worked very diligently to learn and someday be able to solve the equation from the first day. As I have previously stated, I could not.
June 1958 220 years old
I still looked a boy of twelve. I had not changed or aged in any way since the beginning. I had finally learned all I could from this plane. Yes there are other planes. I no longer had anything to do. I grew sullen and complacent. Shadow was still with me. It had since taught itself to talk, but with a feminine voice, which seemed strange coming from my doppelganger. Even with this magnificent creature conversations had lagged. I found it hard to function. I grew listless and did not even want to get out of bed in the morning.
Shadow said that it knew this was coming and that that is why it befriended me in the first place, because I needed to have had some good memories, fun times to remember, happy thoughts if you will. With or without it I would be where I am as old as I am (I had touched and held onto a different plane as an infant) but much worse a person. I would have destroyed the world if I had not found friendship. It said it knew I would reach this point eventually, and that it had an option for me.
A world, better said an existence, with unparalleled happiness. A plane (the one held) that I could never be bored with, that time could not touch. A place where I could use my vast intelligence to my hearts content, where I could learn the answer to the equation from the day we met.
Only there was a condition: I had to help find those like myself. I had to help nurture them, guide them as Shadow had me. I agreed. I followed where Shadow led and helped those like myself, those who needed me. I am sure you have heard of the people who have disappeared never to return. This was our doing. We took them and taught them and sent them on.
We did not only work from that day forward. We bounced through time like it was nothing. Hence my inability to deal with the concept of time any longer. During these adventures I met cavemen that made Einstein look a fool. In the future we met people who had evolved almost to a point of nonexistence. We went everywhere and found those to whom this paradise could be the only existence where they would find happiness.
Present? Past? Future?
Time passed, I do not know how much nor do I care. I will finally be free. It is finally my turn. I will be assimilated. I will join all those who I have helped. I will finally go to the oasis of my soul. It is not heaven and I am not dying, but it will be my bliss, my nirvana.
I have told this story through another’s prose in my final moments in hopes that someone would see and know the truth. Believe in me, please. I was? Am? real. I have seen and heard and watched the myriad tales told of me. All wrong. All fundamentally dysfunctional. I am not? Was not? evil or good. I existed only to help those who needed me for the most base of all human instincts, survival. MY survival depended on my actions. I did what I had to, nothing more.
I am quickly fading so I must end my tale. MY name was? Is? Peter, but Shadow always called me Pan. This was MY story, the true story of Pan, his shadow, and Neverland.