Work Text:
This is not for Pooh.
It's cold outside the nursery today. Cold, with a nasty storm raging, like some demented ruler who's been denied his butter. And I'm in here looking out. Or maybe you're looking in.
That's how it starts.
Me, I'm Chris. Christopher Robin. And I'm warning you now to go back, to close the door and walk away.
I should have done the same when I first got the tape from Emmeline. She'd swear she has nothing to do with it, that her hands are clean, but I know better. She's in it up to her neck. And now so am I.
The tape's an old one. It tells a story of a friend of a friend of hers. An impossible story. It starts with some old friends of mine--I think. It's hard to remember a time when I really knew that I knew them.
I keep thinking about it. I just end up going roundabout and roundabout and roundabout but always end up back in the nursery. The story starts with them, and with the house they found, and what happened inside it. But it doesn't stop there. This filmmaker guy, Morrison, heard the story, you see. He went looking for the house. And he found it. Or it found him.
See what I mean?
That's what's on the tape I got from Emmeline. The story of the house. And the story of Morrison's obsession. Morrison's fate.
So turn back now. Because there is a monster at the end of this book. Because this is a story where you can't look away once you enter, even if you wanted to see what's following you. You can't turn around, because if you turn around it'll be behind you again. You can't even look over your shoulder at it. If it were rendered in understandable words, words that made sense of the skittering terror of it, it would be a word like --
like --
BOUNCE
Interior shot: close-up on open picture book. Pleasant female voice reading aloud. Pages are turned by an unseen hand as the story continues.]
It was a beautiful day in the Hundred Acre Wood when Eeyore discovered that his house had become bigger on the inside than the outside.
"Hallo, Eeyore," said Winnie-the-Pooh, who had just dropped by to say Hallo. "What are you doing in there?"
"I'm putting up measuring tapes," said Eeyore. "But they don't work. Nothing does. That's just how it goes for old Eeyore."
Pooh had a great deal of difficulty thinking about how tapes could stop working if they weren't the sticky kind. "Have you seen Piglet?" he asked.
"He went in about an hour ago," said Eeyore. "Haven't seen him since."
"Oh dear," said Pooh.
[Exterior shot on black-and-white film: a bundle of sticks, piled together haphazardly in a vacant lot. Voice-over is a male voice, young and determined.]
J. Morrison here. That scene--that's the moment when I first became aware of the house.
It's just a heap of sticks. But just imagine what's inside. It's a puzzle. And I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since I first saw it. And then I found it.
[Cut to a close-up of a niche at the front of the bundle, an opening maybe. The shadows inside are darker than they ought to be.]
I think I know how to navigate it, and I'm certain it leads somewhere. Just imagine what kind of world might be on the other side! I have to find out, and I think I can do it. I just need to be prepared.
[Interior shot of book. Illustrations show a number of anthropomorphized animals gathered around a bundle of sticks. A rabbit is peering inside the house with a fearful expression.]
When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.
"Perhaps houses are the same," thought Pooh. After all, there are things like honey pots that look quite different in the sunlight than inside his house. Most often they look full outside and empty once they've spent time inside.
But Pooh didn't like to think of Piglet being full outside and empty inside a house, so he thought instead of things like humming and snowflakes and Pooh Sticks.
Then Owl made an announcement.
"What a situation like this demands," said Owl, "is an Expotition."
[Interior shot: a desk, papers. Same black-and-white film. Morrison steadies the camera and gestures to the charts above the desk.] I've planned my own expedition. I have a map, based on the Owl records. I have plenty of provisions. Fruit, nuts, and so on. [Holds up pack of dried fruit as if flourishing it.]
If I can get through the Trespassers Will hallway and past the sideways rooms, I can get right there-to the top of the stairs-and be back before my supplies run out. Even back in time for tea.
[Morrison pauses, tracing a pattern on the charts. He no longer seems to remember the camera's presence.]
I'm going to be famous.
[Interior shot of book. The illustrations have changed from brightly colored cartoons to fuzzy black and white charcoal sketches. This one shows three animals peering around a gray hallway.]
"Oh, bother," said Pooh. "Are those Heffalump footprints in the corridor?"
"I d-d-d-don't know," said Piglet, "but I think I heard it roaring!"
"These aren't Heffalump footprints!" Rabbit yelled. "These are our own footprints! We've been following our own tracks! We're lost!"
[Unlike the other excerpts, this one is in color film, and the camera shakes badly. Despite the color film, there is no color to see. The camera is pointed alternately at Morrison and down a long blank hallway.]
James Morrison. Bachelor's, Wetherby College. Emergency contact, George Dupree. James Morrison. Wetherby College. I'm not alone.
Five days out from the contact point. I made it to the top of the stairs, and the house seemed to lurch. Then I stopped at the middle stair; it was different somehow, there wasn't any other stair quite like it. And then something changed in the house. It jumped, or lurched, or something. Now the stairs-they're neither up nor down. The whole house seemed to shift.
I can't find my way back. And something's following me.
[He turns the camera around in a too-fast pan of the blank gray hallways, catching a hint of movement at the very far end of a corridor. Possibly orange or yellow against the gray, it is the only color in this whole shot.]
There's something here. It doesn't want crackers. It doesn't want candy. Forget the oranges. Abandon the nuts.
[There is a growling sound far away, something like "worraworraworra."]
At least I've got my pocket-knife.
It almost cuts.
James. James Morrison. Wetherby. George Dupree. I'm only twenty-three. Oh God. James. James Morrison. Morrison. Wetherby. George Dupree. Oh God. I'm not alone. I'm not alone.
And that's where the tape cuts out.
I remember that Pooh and Piglet and Rabbit all made it back to safety, and woke up as if nothing had ever happened. The next storm blew over Eeyore's house, and we never had troubles with it again.
James Morrison hasn't been heard from since.
But I know the house is out there somewhere. With something hidden inside it. Something that might be wearing a golden gown, or orange and covered in stripes.
If you see it, leave it be. It isn't really anywhere.
It's somewhere else instead.
"I have a house where I go
When there's too many people,
I have a house where I go
Where no one can be;
I have a house where I go,
Where nobody ever says "No";
Where no one says anything- so
There is no one but me."