“My goal is to someday fully develop my idea for an adaptation of Winnie the Pooh,” I say, “where Christopher Robin returns to the land of his imagination many years later to find that in his absence all of the loveable creatures he used to play with have become ghoulish caricatures of themselves and the 100-Acre-Wood is like a post-apocalyptic cannibal funhouse.”

“I think I’d like to do it long form, like a novel or maybe even a trilogy of novels.”
“But you just stole the idea from American McGee’s Alice,” Race points out.
“Hold on,” I say, “listen to what I have so far.”

“Christopher Robin, now age 45, is sorting through a box of junk in his father’s attic. He hasn’t been back to the house since he left home twenty-five years ago, but his dad has just passed on, and he has been asked to get the estate in order.

“He pulls out a raggedy-looking teddy bear doll, holds it up to the light. We see in his eyes an echo of recognition, distant as a stone finding the bottom of a well. He digs through the box and one by one pulls out all his old friends: Rabbit, Eeyore, Piglet, Owl, Tigger. They look dirty and moth-eaten, torn up and sewn together like accident victims. He hasn’t thought about them in years, but they were still there, waiting for him. He smiles wistfully and stares at them, wishing he could be 8 years old again. ”

“See, they represent his lost innocence,” I say to Race.
Race has left, and is in the kitchen making a sandwich.
“Could you make me a sandwich too?” I yell, then continue, loudly, so that he can hear me.

“So, he’s sitting there thinking about how badly his life has turned out, when all of a sudden everything goes black and he falls to the floor. When he wakes up, he’s no longer in the attic, he’s in the middle of the forest. Everything is dark, and the trees are all twisted and thorny and growing together in knots, and the sky is red and filled with smoke, and in the distance something is screaming and something else is chasing it.

“Where am I, Christopher Robin says. Then he hears a voice behind him, and it says What’s the matter, don’t you recognize the 100-Acre-Wood? And he turns around, and it’s Tigger. Only, Tigger looks very different, because he’s bigger and meaner looking, and he’s got all kinds of scars and bite marks on him, and he has a missing eye that’s been covered by a leather patch. And he’s holding a spear, and he has a necklace of skulls.”

“I think you’re also stealing from Jumanji now,” says Race.
“No, it’s radically different,” I say.
Race is silent and begins to tie his shoes.

I try to remember where I left off.

“Oh, yeah: Basically what happens is Tigger explains to Christopher Robin how once he left the 100-Acre-Wood, all the animals started to go a little crazy. Piglet killed a bird and cut its stomach open, and just sat there staring at it for hours. Rabbit caught Roo playing in his carrot patch one day and he tied him up and tried to bury him alive. Owl put on a red mask and sat on his perch every day, just laughing at nothing. Eeyore cut off Kanga’s tail and tried to sew it on where his old one used to be. Things like that. Tigger had been able to adapt, because he had been a little crazy to begin with, but he had had to do some horrible things to stay alive.”

“I’m going out,” Race says, walking swiftly out of the apartment. I follow him.
“One good line I have so far is when Tigger says, ‘Yeah, all of us went a little crazy… but most of all Winnie the Pooh.”

Race is walking very quickly, but I manage to keep up until he breaks into a flat-out run, and I stop and go back to the apartment. I check to see if Casey or Dave are home, but they’re gone too. I’m alone, like I am most of time.