{"id":313,"date":"2009-06-02T23:47:28","date_gmt":"2009-06-02T23:47:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/requitedarchive.wordpress.com\/?p=313"},"modified":"2021-08-04T19:21:46","modified_gmt":"2021-08-04T19:21:46","slug":"from-not-merely-because-of-the-unknown-that-was-stalking-towards-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/2009\/06\/02\/from-not-merely-because-of-the-unknown-that-was-stalking-towards-them\/","title":{"rendered":"from Not Merely Because of the Unknown That Was Stalking Towards Them"},"content":{"rendered":"


The title of the piece as well as subsequent italicized portions that are followed by a page number are taken from J.M. Barrie\u2019s<\/em> Peter and Wendy. The title is excerpted from the following: “Of course she should have roused the children at once; not merely because of the unknown that was stalking toward them, but because it was no longer good for them to sleep on a rock grown chilly” (72). <\/em>

Hook pricks all over my spine I\u2019ve. I\u2019ll stay in bed and complain of a sickness<\/em>; if asked, I\u2019ll say that the Tinker Bell has done this<\/em>. She did it out of jealously. Maybe he\u2019ll think I\u2019m gravely ill, that another thimble will save. Me. Maybe she\u2019s too obsessed with something else to make the story what it should be. Why, yes, Tootles, I have noticed that lately, lately she\u2019s taken to spinning heaps of wool from the Never sheep. And where have they come from, come from? New sheep done sprung? And a spinning wheel too has come from out of nowhere? Tis were imagined, imagined<\/em>. Why take to spinning and leave your boys, and leave your boys to play baa baa black sheep? (I do say that something\u2019s<\/em> in the hay!) Ooh oooh oooh, says Tootles, do you think, do you think the

——————————————————————————–


\n The Home Under Ground<\/em>

Hollyhocks blooming all up the side of the trellis, so heavy they need to be tied back lest they droop and break. Neverland earth so rich it will grow anything. Out to the heavens. And so I hold so tightly my little bean lest it escape, implant itself, and fly away from me. Something sinister washed up on the seashore saying too late, too late. <\/em> What is a girl to do? One who is a very little one? Maybe a doctor, a real<\/em> doctor, will come? Will come? Old Hook: all lying with his <\/em>black bag and stethoscope: no real thermometer in there.<\/em> I say, Hook, I say, I do think I\u2019m coming down with something. <\/em> A little bird; a little bird. Do you think that for this<\/em> it\u2019s possible for you to bake me a little cake? Or does it not work that way? Tell me: how do you tell time when your instruments, your landscape keeps changing? The astrolabe says something in conflict with the stars.

***<\/em>

<\/p>\n

girl Wendy is spinning us suits,new sheep suits, and we can finally change out of these here old bear suits? Why, kill a sheep first and see if it fits, if it fits true,<\/em> and then go and see what Peter will say to you; none of the boys, however, are quite that brave; none want to be chased out and away from the Neverland because chasing<\/em> quite means a disappearance<\/em>. Happened once to an old Never monarch; old butterfly never quite said the right words to the Peter bird, who quite made the thing disappear simply. OOoooohhhh, oooohhh, get this, get this, Tootles says, I asked her, and she says that she quite intends, she quite intends to stay on through the winter <\/em>and to the spring, and that is why, that is why she\u2019s a-spinning a Never cloak to wear for then, to meet the cold. We\u2019ve bear suits; she does not; the Wendy bird will freeze, will freeze, and her Never house all slatty. And what has she there in her spinning basket there? Oh, mermaids\u2019 hair, butterfly wings, locks from Hook\u2019s hair, pixie dust, dead pixies\u2019 wings, a myriad of sparkling things, a few stars here, a few Never leaves there; she\u2019s spinning them right in;<\/em> I daresay she\u2019ll blend in and then what then? Will the Peter bird still love her<\/em>? Because, as you know, he only loves them when they are quite different. <\/em> But, Tootles, she will still have that thing.<\/em> What thing? What thing? I hardly know what you mean by that thing.<\/em> I complain of Wendy who has gone nights now without telling us a story. Wendy, she\u2019s in to her elbows in the wash basin trying to demusk the sheep fleece. It\u2019s a ram, you see, and it has a certain

——————————————————————————–


\nThe Home Under Ground<\/em>

Wendy, have you quite come to terms with what it means to fly home? <\/em> I don\u2019t quite think so; you see, I\u2019ve a certain crick in my neck from all of that spinning, and the applying of various poultices\u2014Tiger Lily\u2019s pussy lard and Peter\u2019s toe jam\u2014haven\u2019t quite been working, although Tiger Lily\u2019s father quite said they would. So, no, I haven\u2019t actually been thinking too much on what it means to fly home<\/em>. Why don\u2019t you tell me.

***<\/em>

<\/p>\n

aroma<\/em>; it\u2019s ever-so-much stronger than you might think. The business<\/em> trip will take eleven days; will you be quite lonesome without. Me? The doves all crying; why, yes, you\u2019ve guessed it, Wendy! In the eaves. Don\u2019t be. So sad. Isn\u2019t this exactly the kind of life you imagined. For me? Oh, no. Oh, no. There will be no lovenotes sent to you in starcode; the boss simply won\u2019t allow. It. If you like, maybe you could leave. A note with the secretary. She\u2019ll be happy. To help. You. This, I know. For certain. She\u2019s always so eager. To please. But you mustn\u2019t. Cry,<\/em> Wendy. That won\u2019t do; that won\u2019t do. At all. Oh, there! Will you look at. The time. It\u2019s about time, really. It\u2019s about time that. I got going. And what\u2019s that, you say? The cradle? We\u2019ll discuss it. Later. When I get back. Home. Isn\u2019t it a wonder? Really. That belly of yours is really. A wonder. Quite.
\nThe look in his eyes: it is delicious.<\/em> His eyes say that he\u2019d like to shred Hook to pieces with his good sword, the sword that cut Hook\u2019s hand off, and not his hobby one. But sometimes he\u2019ll mistake the good sword for the hobby sword: this can make a meeting with anything

——————————————————————————–
\nThe Home Under Ground<\/em>

Wendy, I daresay I think it\u2019s about time that we let these things go<\/em> now. Wolf has stopped crying; little lost egg yolk has stopped crying; centipede and caterpillar have stopped crying; old Smee, he of the lost marbles, even he, Wendy, has stopped crying. Old kite all tattered and soiled now\u2014even it has stopped crying. It\u2019s only you now who won\u2019t stop crying. Good god, old lady, you must stop crying. See, see that old moon: close one eye and then two fists over between those two stars there: there you will fly.

***<\/em>

<\/p>\n

quite dangerous<\/em>. For him, it isn\u2019t a matter of unknowing,<\/em> but rather a matter of forgetting.<\/em> Peter is the boy of forgetting.<\/em> (Wendy would like to forget<\/em> that.) Well, aren\u2019t you<\/em> clever; aren\u2019t you just the part!<\/em> For he is just the part<\/em>, you know. That\u2019s her! That\u2019s my<\/em> Wendy, he\u2019ll say when he sees just the right girl.<\/em> (The prop is only make-believe!) She is<\/em> just the right girl. Oh, but won\u2019t the real<\/em> old lady be quite jealous? Won\u2019t she just get all tinkerbell on us? Start pricking and plotting some sort of death for the girl? Won\u2019t matter; won\u2019t matter: something will save<\/em> her; something always saves<\/em> her. That\u2019s how the story always ends. Nothing really happens when the Tinker Bell tries to kill anyone. Nor crocs; nor bearded men. Just the Peter bird, then? Just the Peter bird then.


\n——————————————————————————–
\nThe Home Under Ground<\/em>

Maybe everything\u2019s just falling apart now: skeleton leaves showing their seams. I know how this will go: you\u2019ll say that you don\u2019t really love <\/em>me. Here: take something. To remember me. By. That\u2019s the way the story goes, right, Peter bird? And will you come for any gifts<\/em>? I do fear that I\u2019ve quite run dry of stories.<\/em> You\u2019ve heard them all before. Oh, yes, but you do forget. You\u2019ll forget this one too I guess. No amount of reminding will get you to think of this one in a year\u2019s time. Or maybe. Maybe if I can teach the Never birds to say my name. Maybe if I can get one of the Never boys to keep reminding\u2014oh, but they die. They die, too. They die from the cuts and scrapes from wars with the braves with the wolves with the bears with the pirates too, and you\u2019ll replace<\/em>. Them. That, you\u2019ll do. As is your fashion. And you\u2019ll replace me, too. Replace; replace; replace. It\u2019s such a funny<\/em> word: replace.
\n

***<\/em>

<\/p>\n

Is it real, Peter, is it real that you have left me<\/em>? I complain of Peter, who has left me.<\/em> The leaving was not so make-believe. I too, like Tink, will spend the rest of the whole of my life glorying in being. Abandoned. Tink says she glories in being abandoned <\/em>(92). Not so much as a sorry-to-lose-you between them! If she did not mind the parting, he was going to show her, was Peter, that neither did he. But of course he cared very much<\/em> (97). Or so, that is the story that we tell ourselves, the story we want <\/em>to believe. But doesn\u2019t caring very much<\/em> mean everything<\/em>? As in: I\u2019d do anything?<\/em> No, we hadn\u2019t thought so; we thought not. But oh, Wendy, is that there your manuscript all caught in the trees? Did the Peter bird get angry and wish it gone and it got all caught up in the branches there? There will<\/em> be a story for you to leave, but your leaving will insist on it more that you. What\u2019s that you say? You have a little papoose? A little cocoon to hang, too? Mother wolf all dead now: will your little whelps be going, too? Will they need a nursery room? Shall we, Wendy? Shall we turn your house into a whelp rumpus room?


\n——————————————————————————–


\nThe Home Under Ground<\/em>

The grown-ups again have spoilt<\/em> everything. They too will take the girl Wendy away. Peter didn\u2019t leave the room, and that is why it happened this way. If only he didn\u2019t stay. But he did, and he told his<\/em> story. And it was his story that made it so that the Wendy girl wished to go away. You see, it is story<\/em> that takes them. The dread<\/em> is what makes Wendy forgetful <\/em>(97): Peter, will you make the necessary arrangements<\/em>? (97). It\u2019s quite like a funeral. This is what happens when Peter doesn\u2019t forget. And oh don\u2019t you wish he hadn\u2019t?



Jenny Boully<\/strong> is the author of The Book of Beginnings and Endings, [one love affair]*, The Body: An Essay,<\/em> and the chapbook Moveable Types.<\/em> She teaches at Columbia College Chicago. She has just completed a new manuscript, not merely because of the unknown that was stalking towards them<\/em>, which is excerpted in this issue. Other excerpts have appeared or are forthcoming in Shampoo, Gulf Coast, Fourth Genre, <\/em>and Puerto del Sol.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The title of the piece as well as subsequent italicized portions that are followed by a page number are taken from J.M. Barrie\u2019s Peter and Wendy. The title is excerpted from the following: “Of course she should have roused the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":384,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9926],"tags":[22056],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/384"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=313"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2021,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313\/revisions\/2021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}