A/N: Before we begin, no, the Peter Pan motif is not a reference to Finding Neverland. I happen to like that book on its own, thanks very much (not that the movie isn't fantastic, of course, but I'd like to refer to J.M. Barrie's work in its own right). Okay, moving on.

Singularity

Willy Wonka excels at telling stories. He's got loads of them, all true he declares, tucked away in a plum-colored, velvet reticule, tied in with a string of woven starshine. The amazing chocolatier withdraws each tale from the bag like Saint Nick producing a coveted toy, a magician unveiling the beauty who has just "appeared" in the heretofore empty box. His eyes glitter-gleam like two polished amethysts as his words slide from the crescent moon curve of his smile. Each story is unique, unlike the others that have come before it. Or so Charlie thought when he was a boy.

Now, without warning, the sand slides through the hourglass.

Charlie went to college and lived in the real world, but only for a twinkling. He's returned (God knows why) to the unreal world at last, to the most unbelievable factory ever. Now that he has life experience tucked beneath his cap, now that he towers over his once-beloved mentor, now that he is a bona fide grown-up (with the degrees to prove it), he no longer marvels at Mr. Wonka's stories. He's heard them all before. He doesn't even know for sure whether he believes in them now. No atlas that he's ever seen has a map of a country called Loompaland.

But how do you explain the Oompa-Loompas?

You can't, he tells himself. But that doesn't prove that Loompaland exists.

So where do they come from?

How should I know?

The niggling voices in his head always sound like Mr. Wonka –self-absorbed, teasing, puckish to a fault ("Oh, the cleverness of me!"). Sometimes Charlie wonders if maybe it really is the candyman talking, as if he's somehow developed the magic to give him telepathic powers. But such thoughts soon melt like chocolate on July pavement. Charlie is an educated adult: he no longer believes in magic. He did when he was a child, of course, but so do all children. When he became a man, he put away childish things, and isn't that what men are meant to do?

Not men like Willy Wonka, insinuates some sinuous, sneaky susurration.

But Willy Wonka isn't what Charlie would call a man to begin with. Instead, he is an oversized child. Like Peter Pan, he remains either fettered or freed by his infantile dreams (Charlie still isn't sure which). He lives betwixt a giggle and a frown, on the blurred line between paradise and reality. The factory is his Neverland, the rival candymakers his vicious pirates, the Oompa-Loompas his Indians and fairies. But what, in this fairyland, can Charlie be? What is left to him now but the dreaded, too-grown-up role of Captain Jas. Hook?

Now, there's an interesting thought, murmurs the voice that is and is not Wonka.

Perhaps going away, while it seemed a prudent notion at the time, has in fact been the stupidest decision he's yet made. Perhaps in departing, even for a few years, Charlie has forever forsaken the key to candymaking. No longer has he the chance to develop the magic twinkle in his eye, the sly shimmer of a smile, the precise flutter of a gloved hand that is so crucial to a chocolatier's veneer. And as far as he can see, there is no way to retrieve his youthful immortality. You can never un-grow-up. Despite the morbidity in such thoughts, Charlie now knows the truth: Willy will always be younger than he is. It's the result of his own mistake, and nothing can change the fact. He himself is destined to wind up old, alone and done for.

Even so, there must be a reason, some sort of excuse to give him feeble hope. After all, it's not as if there can be a second Willy Wonka. Perhaps Charlie's fate was therefore irredeemable, no fault of his own. Willy is sui generis, a fluke, a freak of nature. No other child can be like him, not even his ostensible heir –no matter how hard he tries and fails to teach Charlie to be the same.

All children, except one, grow up, and Willy Wonka is that lucky exception.

Disclaimer: Willy Wonka's universe and everything in it belongs to Roald Dahl, Tim Burton, publishers, producers and other movie people. Peter Pan belongs to J.M. Barrie. I own nothing, and I did not intend to make money/infringe upon any copyright laws in the creation of this piece.