There’s a very old story about Neverland. It is a wild place, where mermaids chant and children run free. In the first stories, written down or shared in whispered snatches, death stayed far away from Neverland. Age, too. No child sickened, or succumbed to wounds or curiosity (or loathing, or betrayal, or-). This was, of course, because adults thought violence and loss were harsh and new concepts for children, which has never been true.

Later, the stories got harder to hear, and adults said they had written them for each other, which was also untrue but comforting. Children killed in these stories, and they died, and there were no mermaids on the islands they burned so the children chanted in their place.

Even later, the stories stopped.  The old ones were bastardized - made palatable - stripped of their heartbeats to myth and reference.  The new ones: taught in schools, so children would despise their trappings and not otherwise yearn for them.  But still, there came the darkling whispers, on those schoolyard islands and graphite chants.

There’s an old story about Neverland.  This isn’t it.