I had a dream where I was Christopher Robin in a Winnie the Pooh tale. It was a traditional story in most respects, except for the fact that Eeyore was very large–quite a bit larger than in Milne’s imaginings. In fact, in my dream Eeyore was a Titan, and he seemed unshakably despondent about it. All of us, Kanga, Roo, Owl, Rabbit, Piglet, Pooh, and I, sat in the shade of one of Eeyore’s massive grey hooves. Eeyore lay on his side gasping for air, each strained breath sending twisters rolling across the meadow a few miles away. Our heads were hung in despair for Eeyore, whose structure would soon fail to support its own mass. Tigger, ever the oblivious optimist, suggested a game to lighten our spirits.

‘Hide and seek!’ Tigger exclaimed. Eeyore grunted a thunderous response that I was at a loss to interpret.

‘But Tigger,’ Pooh said, ‘Eeyore won’t be able to hide at all. He’s so big that we’d be able to find him for sure.’

‘He’s right,’ said Piglet. ‘Eeyore’s much too big ever to play any games ever, ever again.’

‘Nonsense!’ Tigger responded without hesitation. ‘We’ll make Eeyore “it,” and we’ll all hide!’

‘But where shall we hide?’ asked Kanga. ‘Eeyore is on top of all the best hiding spots,’ Roo added.

‘Oh dear,’ said Pooh.

Tigger bounced over to Pooh and threw a paw over his shoulder. ‘Not a problem, Pooh bear’ said he. ‘We’ll hide inside Eeyore! His left ear is draped over the glen. If we’re quick enough we can all make it there before he finishes counting!’

With an excited squeal, Piglet immediately ran off in the direction of Eeyore’s left ear. The rest of them looked at me in unison. ‘How high shall we tell Eeyore to count?’ Pooh asked in their behalf.

I didn’t know what to say, but heard myself answering nonetheless. ‘I’ll tell him to count to a million,’ I said. ‘That should give us time to find good hiding spots.’ The matter decided, we all headed off while Eeyore’s ragged croaks echoed over the countryside.

The rest of the dream is kind of a blur, but I do remember that Eeyore didn’t make it half way before going completely mad, I think because Piglet unwittingly burrowed into our gigantic friend’s brain. Eeyore brayed and brayed, and didn’t sound like his old self at all. In fact, we all wished he would just shut up, and had to leave the Hundred Acre Wood so that we could concentrate on our games. As for hide and go seek, we all decided that Piglet should be ‘it’ next, just as soon as he sponged the gore from his person.