Book at Bedtime

SCENE 1. INT. A COSY ROOM. NIGHT.

THE READER IS SAT IN A LARGE CHAIR NEXT TO A LOVELY FIRE. HE HAS A LARGE BOOK IN HIS LAP.

READER:

Hello everyone and welcome to Bok at Bedtime. Tonight’s story is Winnie The Pooh �" Now We Are Young Professionals by AA Milne. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin…

Chapter One �" in which Pooh Bear wakes up to greet another day…

It was the morning of Eeyore’s funeral. Pooh stared at the alarm clock watching the minutes and seconds drift slowly into each other, counting down to the herald of another wretched day. Poor Eeyore… in the years since their youth his ongoing cries for help had just become the background noise to life. No one ever thought he would actually go through with it. Who would when you’ve cried wolf for this many years? It was just unthinkable… But there it was… It had finally happened.

It had been Tigger who had found him as he enjoyed his morning bounce through the heart of 100 Acre Wood. Poor Eeyore, all alone, hanging from the bough of a tree… A noose fashioned from his own tail. If only they had just taken the time to pin that tail on in a satisfactory manner perhaps this would never have come to pass… But that’s the thing with death, it leaves no one behind to blame except yourself. But it was important that Pooh stayed strong for those that were still here… Not that many were…

Eeyore was with Owl, Piglet and Roo now. Owl had been the first to go and he had lived a good life. Even when all those allegations were bandied about he had remained stoic and definitely died with a big old smile on his beak. Piglet? Well, everyone knew about his nocturnal excursions to the clubs on the edge of the wood and how important it was to be careful. He was just another casualty to hedonism of the 90s. It was Roo that had been the shock… knifed outside his own house after a gang of Woozles caught him with one of their women. Kanga had never got over it and had moved back in with her ex-husband shortly after. She said she needed support but everyone knew she was just getting back to the smack. After all, time had stopped for her that day… If only time could stop now…

The alarm rang out and Pooh moved wearily to his kitchenette, sighed and spooned some hunnie into his morning whiskey.

That’s it for tonight children. Join me tomorrow to find out what happens to Pooh at the crem and later this week to discover what takes pace when he and Christopher Robin get hammered at the wake.

END