A Dialogue between Captain Hook and Peter Pan

Read this post on my new site: A Sea of Glass and Fire

Captain Hook is sitting behind his desk in his private room on the Jolly Roger. He's dressed in a suit, reminiscent of a general authority at a Mormon General Conference. He looks at the hook on his right arm with pride, and with it he idly thumbs through the LDS Church's handbook.

Suddenly, Peter Pan bursts through the door, holding his dagger threateningly. Hook looks startled but not surprised.

Peter Pan: I've come to kill you, Hook!

Captain Hook: Pan, we've been over this - I'm not your enemy.

Peter Pan: You are too! You're a cultural imperialist to the Indians, you drive the Lost Boys to despair and suicide, and you don't let the mermaids become authorities on your ship. What do you have to say for yourself?

Captain Hook: I'm following God's plan. I've told you that a million times.

Peter Pan: Psh...as if! God wouldn't be so oppressive!

Captain Hook: You're right. God loves you.

Peter Pan: How can you say that? God wouldn't tell me not to love who I want to love. Not if he loves me.

Captain Hook: You have to have faith, Peter. Things will be alright.

Peter explodes with rage.

Peter Pan: No they won't! You're evil, and you need to die!

Captain Hook: But I'm not evil, Peter. People aren't evil - they can just do evil things.

Peter Pan: You're wrong. You'll pay for what you've done. The blood of the Lost Boys on your hook will be avenged!

Peter soars through the air and goes to stab Hook in the heart. But he misses. Instead, he slices through his right hand just above the hook, taking it clean off.

Hook stands stunned for a moment, bleeding from his stump of a right arm. But then the blood pouring out stops dripping down and instead starts flowing UP his body. His suit, once pristine, is now covered in blood. He is being changed.

Soon, the blood clears off, and an ordinary man stands there, still in a suit, and still the same man, but with something brighter in his eyes. They speak more of hope than of defensiveness, more of the endless than of this world.

Peter stands dumbounded. Hook notices that his hand has been healed, and, eager to test it out, he goes to shake Peter's hand. Peter draws back instinctively, out of fear.

Peter Pan: It...it healed! Your hand is back! But I thought the crocodile ate it!

Captain Hook: I don't understand it either. But I feel different: I don't feel as old, and clocks don't seem to bother me anymore. Maybe, somehow, the crocodile gave it back to me...

Peter Pan: But I was with you the whole time!

Captain Hook: That's just it - the croc is with us whenever we have time, and I think I've just had some given back to me.

Peter Pan: But...but you still have to pay for what you did!

He goes to slice Hook, but Hook is nimbler now. He dodges and sidesteps. Peter goes again, but to both their surprise, Hook leaps into the air with unnatural grace. It's like he is flying, but he is still at least somewhat subject to gravity, like walking on the moon.

Peter Pan: But...how?

Captain Hook: I don't know, and I don't need to know! 

He leaps around like Neil Armstrong playing golf

Captain Hook: I'm as light as a feather! I don't need my hook; like the lilies of the field and the birds of the air, I don't have to worry.

Peter Pan: But don't you have a ship to run? Don't you have to do those worthiness interviews?

Captain Hook: Yes, but none of that's serious. I see now that it never was. I need to run a ship, but a ship isn't the world. I can best help the world by remembering its place in that world.

Peter Pan: But...we all thought that your ship was the best ship of all! The Lost Boys died from despair, knowing that they could never be themselves as pirates!

Captain Hook: I'm sorry, I truly am. But they will have not died in vain. Now I see that everything is light. This must be what you called fairy dust: everything can float, and I can lift anything with the palm of my hand. And none of this would have happened without you.

Peter Pan: But I came here to kill you!

Captain Hook: Hook is dead. I'm a new man now, Peter, and I have you to thank. So...thank you!

Peter Pan stands there for a moment, then walks away, confused. Hook goes back to his desk and puts the LDS handbook back in the drawer. He sits down, puts his feet up on his desk, and puts his now-whole hands behind his head. Hook had been reborn, and even though Peter doesn't understand what just happened, the captain knows that Peter is meant for still greater things.