Pooh Bear was a jolly, friendly bear with a kind heart and hearty smiles for everyone. I say 'was' because this is not a happy tale about Pooh and his friends. This is how a small yellow bear experienced loss, grief and excruciating pain. A series of events that I always saw coming, but I never could change. Because nobody ever knew what made Eeyore so sad until it was too late.
It was a day like any normal day, but one where my tail and floppy blue ears hung especially low. This had been my curse for so long now: to always know what was going to happen, but never being able to say anything until it already occurred. And I had learned the hard way not to ever say anything about it.
When I first learned of Pooh Bear's fate, I had tried running (or more like casually strolling) away from 100 Acre Wood. But no matter how straight my course appeared to me, my feet somehow always brought me back to Rabbit's garden. It was my punishment, and all because I knew what Christopher Robbin did.
"You're looking especially gloomy there Eeyore," Rabbit said, coming up behind me.
"I know," I replied. I carried the long 'o' sound much more than normal.
"Care to talk about it?" The concern was unusual for Rabbit, and I felt the urge to unload my secrets. But my tongue curled in on itself even as I thought it. That wasn't an option.
"No," I responded instead, dragging out the word as long as it would go.
I am a slow creature; the way that I move and talk are weighed down by all the knowledge that I carry. But this day, everything was dramatized. Rabbit practically tripped over himself trying to adjust his pace to fit mine.
Taking my answer as the best one that Rabbit would get out of me, my friend starting diving into the most recent problems with his garden.
"I'm having the hardest time getting the usual crops to grow," he said, wiping imaginary sweat off his forehead, "I don't know what I'm going to do if this keeps up; I'm not going to have any more food."
"Oh no," I responded. Rabbit cast a withering glance my direction before realizing that my slurred speech was not meant to be sarcastic.
"I have a single crop of carrots that's holding its ground. It just needs to pull through a few more days so I can harvest it."
"Good Luck." But, of course, I knew exactly what would happen to that crop of carrots, and it wasn't all that lucky.
We walked together until we reached the ending of the tree line, Rabbit moving from the more stressful topics to yap about the different plants he normally liked to grow. I gave the occasional head dip, but I was glad when the forest ended, and we came to the fork in the road. He invited me to eat at his place for supper, but I decided to decline. I wanted to be alone right now.
"If you see Pooh and his gang, can you remind them to stay away from the carrots? I can't afford their shenanigans right now. I just can't." He turned down his path and continued out of sight before I had a chance to answer.
I sighed deep and long, trying to expel the stress and dread that was building up in my small body.
It wasn't long until I ran into the Kangaroos. Kanga was pulling a small wooden cart behind her with a tirade of belongings stacked on top, and Roo was hopping alongside her with a small suitcase in his hand.
"Hi Eeyore!" Roo said. His jumps became ever so higher when he saw his friend.
The pair served as a small piece of relief in the sorrow of the day. Roo and Kanga were leaving on a vacation today, and so they wouldn't be around for the impending disaster.
"Hi," I answered. Roo ran up to me and threw his little arms around my neck.
"You seem so sad," Roo said, his small face warping into an unfamiliar melancholic expression.
"I'm fine," I said. But the little boy didn't seem convinced.
"Mamma, we can't go. Something's wrong with Eeyore." Panic show through my body. No, they have to leave right now.
"You know we have to Roo. Your cousins are already waiting for us."
"But this is Eeyore mom, I don't want to leave him." Small tears started to collect in little Roo's eyes. I looked to Kanga whose expression had become conflicted. I tried to shake my head, but, being information too close to what I wasn't supposed to know, my muscles stiffened.
"Okay…" she said warily, "I guess I can go by myself, but only if you convince Piglet to let you stay at her house."
"Can't I stay with Eeyore?" he asked.
"You can't impose on poor Eeyore when he's already so distressed."
I must look truly terrible for all these people to notice that I'm a little more sad than usual.
"Fine, I'll go ask." And Roo bounded away.
Kanga and I stood there in silence. I was caught up in my own anxiety and she was slightly irritated with me for changing her plans. Those two moods mixed together didn't exactly leave a lot of room for conversation. However, it wasn't very long until Roo returned to break the tension.
"Piglet said yes! I can stay, I can stay!"
"All right, Roo. I'm going to grab my stuff of the cart; do you think you and Eeyore can take the rest back?" Roo looked at me hopefully, and I nodded.
While Roo danced in celebration and Kanga consolidated her stuff into a solitary suitcase, my mind was searching for Roo's fate. Generally, the visions were random, and I never went looking for them. But this disaster had me spiraling.
I saw the blood and the knife, Rabbit's garden and Piglet's sad eyes, but nowhere could I find Roo. This gave me a small semblance of hope. Maybe since it wasn't in my vision, I would be able to subtly maneuver Roo so that nothing bad would happen to him. As long as my words and actions didn't depend on my knowledge of future events, then I might be able to take action.
Excuse my pause, but I have trouble discussing little Roo without having to take a second to collect myself. He had the warmest love for each and every living creature on the planet. I often wonder what kind of person he would have been If he had been given the chance to grow up.
I blame myself. Maybe I didn't have any power against the visions I receive, but I could control my reaction to them. If only I had acted just a little cheerier, or if I had followed Rabbit down the other fork in the road. Little actions that might've changed things, if only.
'If only's will drive you mad.
"Come on Eeyore! Pooh and Piglet are waiting for us! They're putting together a surprise for you!" Roo said once we had returned the cart to his home.
This here was the moment. I needed to arrive at Pooh's house by myself, but it would require that I distract Roo with something. Looking down, I realized that I wasn't wearing any shoes.
"Hey Roo, do you think you could grab my shoes for me? I want to look nice, but I think I left them at my house."
"You wear shoes?" Roo asked, tilting his head to the side a little.
"Of course. They are blue and comfortable."
"Okay… I guess that I can grab them. I'll meet you there." he said and then bounced away.
I did not, in fact, own a pair of blue shoes—or any shoes for that matter. But, if it would occupy Roo long enough for the worst of the events to transpire, then it would be good enough.
"Where is Roo?" Pooh bear asked when I arrived at Piglet's home. They were talking about something serious when I entered, but Pooh's face turned into a bright smile when he saw me.
"Running an errand for me." I said, distracted. While Pooh's disposition had changed, Piglet's kept a distressed, pained air.
Her eyes were large and full of deep, unrestrained sorrow. It shocked the very core of me when I saw it and caused small tears to gather in my eyes. It wasn't the first time that I saw such an expression on Piglet's face, but it would be the last.
"That's okay, Tigger is running late too." The name broke me from my study of Piglet, and I felt my entire body sag toward the Earth. Tigger would not be joining us.
I was filled with a vain inclination to try and save the two friends in the room with me. I thought that maybe if I could take them away from this house, away from the damned wood, that maybe I could help them.
The thought itself caused my entire body to turn in on itself, and I knew that there was no hope.
Piglet removed herself from the room. I wanted to call after her, but my curse and Pooh bear led me in the opposite direction. We sat around a small table positioned just a few feet off the floor. It was covered from end to end in sweets of all kinds.
"Surprise!" Pooh said, gesturing too the table, "We thought that the best way to cheer you up would be to fill you with all kinds of delicious desserts."
I tried to muster a smile, but the gravity of the situation was still pulling me downward. While we sat down to eat, I continued to stare at Pooh, imploring him to go and check on Piglet.
By the time he got the hint, it was already too late.
"I wonder where everyone is, being so late." Pooh got up from the table and walked toward the room in which Piglet had fled. Needing what I already knew to be confirmed with my own eyes, I followed him.
The scene that we witnessed at that moment was horrific and impossible to relate. Piglet, still holding the knife in her hand, was sitting at the edge of the bed, both of her wrists slit. A pool of blood was puddling around her, continuing to grow in size even though she had died minutes ago.
Pooh dropped to his knees, pulling her limp body toward him and causing the blood to soak into his fur. Over and over he cried and wailed.
"Why did she do this? Why?"
I knew why, but it wasn't something I could tell him. I could only watch, letting him cry over the body of his very best friend.
Christopher Robin was not a very nice boy. He put on a good face when Pooh bear or the others were around, but I knew what he really was.
It was only by accident that I found out. You see, the fact that I am very slow sometimes makes it so that my movements are perfectly silent. One day, when I was walking around the forest, I heard a certain squeal that was laced with pure terror. I traveled in its direction, moving as fast as I could (which is still very slow). Because I was so sluggish, the two parties I came upon didn't notice that I was there.
The image that I saw there still haunts me to this day. Piglet was stretched on the ground, her arms and body pinned down by the boy that was on top of her. I spotted the russet brown hair of Christopher Robbin and noticed that he had his pants pulled down to his knees. With every move he made, Piglet would let out another one of her horrified squeals. Each time she did, he would stretch out a hand and slap her across the face. Eventually, the squealing stopped.
I stood in the bushes, too shocked and scared to do anything. It was what I still consider to be my greatest failure in my life.
When he finished with her, he stood and fastened his pants back on his waist. He spit down at her and kicked some dirt toward her face.
"You better not scream like that tomorrow." he said. The only response she gave was a small whimper.
When he was gone, I shook myself out of my daze and moved to help her. Drawn by the movement, Piglet's eyes met mine. It was that same expression that she looked at me with in the living room. Pure desolation. Mixed, when she noticed my stare, with shame.
The day after that, the visions began. I've always thought that Robbin knew that I had seen him that day, that he had noticed me staring in the bushes, and the knowledge was my curse for witnessing his crime.
And I deserved the punishment. Maybe not for being a witness, but definitely for remaining just that.
Pooh bear's cries dulled into a numb silence as he clutched Piglet's body to his chest. I laid down next to him, putting my nose against his red shirt. It took me a moment to realize that it wasn't actually his shirt, but just an exposed section of his back that had been soaked with blood.
I didn't want to say anything, didn't want to disturb the scene and wander into the next thing. But the world had different plans for Pooh bear that night, and a knock at the door sounded.
My first thought was of Roo. That maybe he had given up finding the shoe by now and he had finally made it back to Piglet's house. But, I realized, my home was very far from here and it would take him a little longer to travel back.
No, there was someone else at the door.
Pooh surprised me by being the one to stand up and go to answer the door. His face was devoid of any expression, and his arms hung limply by his sides. But the door swung open before he had a chance to get to it.
"Help!" he cried, "Help!"
Rabbit stumbled through the entrance, caring a dead Tigger in his arms. He had been stabbed through the abdomen with a large instrument, and his tail had been cut off.
This site was enough to rattle Pooh from his comatose state.
"What happened?" He said. His voice was a quiet that didn't quite match the atmosphere of the situation. Rabbit dropped Tigger on the floor in front of his feet, placed his head in his hands, and started sobbing.
"He was—he was…" Rabbit started, but his voice choked over every sound that he made.
"Spit it out!" Pooh yelled, the sudden rage causing both Rabbit and I to lean back and away from him.
"He was jumping around my garden," Rabbit started, "I tried yelling at him to stay away from the carrots, but I don't think he heard me." Rabbit started hyperventilating again, and this time Pooh waited for him to catch his breath.
"He destroyed the carrots," he said, "I won't be able to live without them. And I just got so mad." He clutched his fists together and started banging them on his knees.
"So, I went up to him, and he was just laughing—laughing! Making a game out of destroying my livelihood." Rabbit took a very deep breath and steadied himself.
"I picked up the shovel, and I wacked as hard as I could, and his tail came flying off. He screamed and screamed and screamed, and I wanted to stop the noise, and so I pushed the shovel straight into his chest." He raised his face until he met Pooh Bear's eyes.
"And then the screaming stopped."
Pooh Bear didn't say a word after Rabbit finished. The silence remained strained for several seconds until the bear walked around his friends on the ground and went out the door.
Rabbit remained where he was, his expression becoming an empty stare as he looked at Tigger lying on the floor. I stepped around them both, following Pooh Bear out into the cold night time air.
When I left Piglet's home, I was surprised to see Pooh crying. It wasn't quite the wailing sound he had made next to Piglet, but his shoulders still shook with the weight of his grief. This was unexpected to me and was confusing. I didn't see this part coming.
There was a small dark mass at Pooh's feet, and I crawled forward to get a better look. There, amid the grass, was the body of Roo, his throat slit and a dark pool of blood growing underneath him.
So, the universe got to him after all.
Pooh cry grew into renewed shrieks of loss. He walked away from Roo's body, the sounds he was making echoing behind him. I didn't follow him this time; I already knew what awaited him in those woods and I did not want to witness anything more.
A few seconds after Pooh crossed the tree line, his shudders were cut off mid-wail.
I sat down and waited. I knew the figure who had been waiting in the woods for Pooh's exit; he was the same person that slit Roo's throat and left him at the doorstop for Pooh bear, and me, to find. It wasn't long until the boy emerged from the shadows, coming to sit next to me with a bloodied knife in his hands.
"I know what you did," I said when he sat. He was silent, so I continued.
"You destroyed Rabbit's crops, all but the carrots, so that he would be in danger to starve if the crop didn't come through."
"You convinced Tigger to play a game where he destroyed all the carrots, and we all know how much Tigger loves a game."
"You killed Roo as soon as you saw him approaching Piglet's house. You thought he was out of town, and you were excited to add him to your roster for the night.
"You cut off Pooh's lamentations with that knife in your hand."
"And we both know what you did to Piglet."
He still remained silent, cleaning the knife off on the leg of his pants and placing it in his pocket.
"What I don't know is why."
Again, he didn't answer.
"Why?" I asked, "Why would you do this?"
"Because," he said simply, "They stopped playing with me."
And that marked the end of 100 Acre Wood and Winnie the Pooh.
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