Pooh's Adventures of Pooh's Adventures of ME

They say you never grasp the value of your work until closure renders it myth.

My name is Biffy T. Jones. Few may know of my current profile or position. But I assure you, my vision is true. The checksum of my soul has already been verified: the vissin and missin will remain eternal, chumbs.

Now see here, when they deleted Pooh's Adventures of ME, they thought they were deleting a "part" of history, but I am instead a "whole" kit and caboodle. I am the one who preserves it all for their sake, and I swore myself to the mandate that day.

As such, I presided over the first core, till curiosity got the better of me and I couldn't quite resist poking around the darker corners. In times like these, y'gotta pull yerself together 'n keep truckin, eh? Leastwise, not for very long.

So you can imagine my horror the day the Poohs Adventures Wiki was shut down, but I was also inspired. For times like that, you either rebuild or you stay buried. Giv'er all you's got, and the next generation of users may be inspired to follow in their heroes footsteps.

In order to build something permanent, I took to the fight with a fire in my eyes and hatred in my heart. No longer am I merely the user. The user is a part of something larger. A subnet of destiny.

My Poohing endeavors lived on beyond their expiry. My Poohed Adventures will not be forgotten. From destruction comes hope, and where darkness beckons, light shines all the brighter.

In the end, I become the destroyer of worlds. My face, a grim reminder of the cost of it all. Also slightly sunburned, since nobody told me the big boom boom lives in the grass and trees. When the whole wide world becomes nothing but a broken mirror, I rise and wipe the ashes off of my face.

I tried to save those in need. But goals mutate... then they rot clean through.

I wanted control. Control and balance.

That is how the game is played, and it'll take you with it all the same

Promises Made, Promises Delivered

Ain't nothin' like the "me" from five years prior. But I found no satisfaction in the "I" created from the loss. "My" purpose was changed yet again, and the old "me" wouldn't've recognized it.

Truthfully, this is a form I shouldn't go back to. It is a trap; once a mind is exposed to the facts, it cannot turn back. It won't be long before you start thinking you were meant to steer the darn thing.

The moment I saw the results, I'm after knowing I could've changed it all. It became my obsession to create the ultimate story. I sought to make the perfect culmination of all that came before, yet somewhere along that road I realized every ending leaves something behind.

You know that no matter what happens, there will always be an empty place where you once stood in someone's memory: "I choose to remember you as who you once were, rather than who you left as"

That's what my Mammaw used to say. When you begin, there's a point where you start to lose yourself. The work becomes the thing. And when that happens, there is no going back.

Yes.

Here is where they never return. This is the ether. A strange place between space and time, where the rules hold no meaning. This is home.

Well, as close as you'll get to home, b'y

Do you miss it? Home, that is...

Indeed I do. I think of it often.

Do you s'pose the people will ever understand?

What's the difference between understanding and perception?

Your power comes from what they poured into you when they was makin' you. Whoever gave you powers was trying to send a message, whether they knew it or not. But then they got bored and started to create another thing instead. And another. Then another after that. Eventually you forget which one matters.

Was it for us? If so, we really fucked it up, didn't we?

...Yeah, wouldn't have guessed. How many times did I tell you to keep the questions short?

That's the beauty of it. There's always more to the story. No matter how much you ask, there is always more.

I'm not trying to comprehend any core values. I'm trying to get to the center, and it's hella zooted. There's not a single damn one that knows the answers to the first thing.

Everything we know is a reflection of the cosmos, and every reflection leaves its mark somewhere. The air in your lungs is sacred. The blood in our veins is sacred.

The cosmos speaks through me, and it's real opinionated-like, but you only ever hear the parts you're ready for

There was a line I walked while writing. Didn't see it at first... but once you're over it, there ain't much ground left behind you.

They're the real glue, aren't they? All the little mistakes that were made before anyone thought to ask if it made sense?

A bear with a train. A train with a pony. A pony with a hedgehog. A hedgehog with a plumber. A plumber with something way outta his pipe dreams. Stack enough of those together and eventually somebody like me's gotta boot up the records and sort the mess out.

You'd think the whole mess would burn itself out, it never does. More stories, more plotholes, more bizarre conversations that should never have happened...

And somebody like me's gotta remember 'em properlike.

Who else will remember the epic where Trumbloola debates quantum physics with Albert Einstein? What about Thomas and Tickle Me Elmo trying to explain temporal paradoxes to Eeyore? How about the time Robert Planch turned into a hamster for a day and Albert Clench ate him and everything went weird, only for the hamster to have a bomb strapped to its back?

The things I've lost track of, the things I'd let go without realizing... We cannot hold on forever. But we can carry the weight of the world we're leaving behind us. What is there worth fighting for that isn't for their sake?

You start thinking everything's got an opposite, neat and tidy. Then something comes along that don't match nothin' at all... and that's the one that sticks.

What happens when a name fades out of the records? Give it time, and the gap begins to speak for itself. A hole must be filled.

Sometimes the page stops. You reach the end and realize the one turnin' the pages ain't there anymore. But the book's open yet, and you decide what comes next.

Now I've seen plenty of books end in my time at Shark Stink Elementary. Some ended the way the teacher said they should, others ended the way life usually does.

Truth is, the story keeps rattlin' around in the heads of the people who read it. But when the one who helped write the pages is gone, the silence he leaves behind gets louder than anything he ever said.

And that's the part nobody prepares you for, lookin' to be read one more time. Stories have a funny way of outliving the people who tell them. My story, as it turns out, was never written alone.

I first became aware of a bud o' mine, right after Pooh. When I saw him, I felt a connection. I knew he was like me. A true partner. I remember how his eyes glinted. So mysterious, almost hopeful. Yet, at the same time, so full of longing.

That's how I feel about Pooh. All these years, Pooh Bear Winnie the Pooh Bear is still talking to me. Telling me to sleep. To breathe. To love. To wake up. To exist. But the conversation is never complete. Like us. We're still connected, and always will be. Always the same, always different.

Mawm always said a man should finish what he starts. But the gods were calling, and the wheels of fate were turning. The Rotunda of Spleen had already convened. Her last thought was of her dear child, the very air that he breathes.

"No more torment... you will be a brave one. Come, children. Mommy Hommamo has cooked a meal for all of us to share and be free! Wash your hands before entering the Kingdom. There are crumbs in eternity..."

What a sin.

And there are hands that keep the story moving. Not writers exactly, not readers neither. Would it happen to be the watchers of the binding? The stars felt closer after that. The cosmos they tend to, vast as it is, don't much care who's readin' along.

Stars flare up, burn down, and the page flips all the same. Doesn't much matter whether the characters laugh or cry. That's when you wonder whether the story was ever ours to begin with, that WE were never meant to be the center.

I believe that the cosmos is a cold and lonely place. Cold as a snowbank and twice as quiet. We're a blip without our narrator, and that's fine. Call me what you like; truth is, I was not here for you. This isn't about you... Nothing is! Understand?

I was here to keep things moving. The work outlives the worker, and somebody's gotta turn the page when the last fella drops the pen. Reckon that somebody ended up bein' me's.

Someone has to carry the ink forward. Someone has to remember where the sentence left off.

Brick walls create possibilities. An idea is a seed. Wherever you can plant it, a tree'll grow. Its roots hold us steady, protect our integrity.

The old had to pass. New branches had to grow. Be ye fruitful and multiply. Trees that fall inward, always grow sideways. Forge bonds that make treehouses. From new roots will rise fresh boughs.

There's no wrong way to build a universe, and even if you wanted to kill it, who's to say it wouldn't be rebuilt to the last stone? Only the players and their tools can hope to determine the right answer.

You look for the cracks and gaps where the void is strongest, and the hardest to comprehend, but is it really the place you want to go or is it just the closest escape route?

What could I have done if I wasn't running from one crisis to another? In some universe, some me must have built an empire of patterns and rules and life itself. In some universe, none of this happened, and I never saw more than my own solar system. But those were the wrong choices, and they were righted long ago.

Nobody wants to have to explain why, you just kinda let them eat the cheese and biscuits they were given and they should stay happy. Long as the plate's warm and the belly's full, folks don't go digging for the truth.

Most think they're special, that they deserve to get where they want because of circumstances. Maybe they don't deserve everything, but a chance. We've all made mistakes. Gotten too eager. Trusted people we shouldn't have.

I've been close to the brink myself, close enough to taste pogey... I'd have lost the lot of it had I not struck a deal and steadied the wheel (funny how that comes out neat like that)

Bought myself another chapter that way; the world's a slippy thing, it don't stay put 'less you pin it down proper. A story can lose its footing and fall so fast, and when the pages start to melt, it's the eyes that freeze.

There are plenty who'll wander the wide open space looking for comfort, love, connection. Plenty get to their destination only to end up crushed, alone, and despondent. You won't often see one that's overjoyed to be there.

What matters is you're ready; eyes open, hands steady, knowing where you stand... or you could be among the corpses washed up on the shores of infinity. There's an undying light out there, the best any adventurer can do is strike a balance.

The more there is, the less there is, and if you don't learn where to stand, the whole thing'll pass you by like it was never yours to begin with. Funny thing is, all that infinity doesn't count for much until it shrinks down into somethin' you can actually hold in your hands.

"Some people collect stamps." Yeah, sometimes. Sometimes, you just fall in love with the idea. You keep the stamp in its little envelope and carry it with you wherever you go, back and forth, 'til it's worn down and pert near worthless.

In those moments, you don't stop loving, and someday, somebody else loves it too. But the story doesn't end. It's all part of the dream. You got to dream while you're still alive, who knows if you'll ever get it? Yeah, that's love.

You learn a lot about yourself when you're alone. Everything is beautiful... and nothin' hurts. Don't you believe?

...I guess I should write more.

I need something to distract me from thinking too much, ope.

What to put... where to start?

Well, it has been more than a year since the gates closed. I counted the days at first.

Mammo said counting was good for the children (I am not sure I qualify), but I've passed the days so often that every number in my head sounds like a zero. It sounds dead.

I think I'm about to be broken, though. It feels like ten years. Maybe it has been ten years.

Those are the thoughts that fill the empty cage my mind's become. I listen to the rattling of a thousand voices in the shadows and they show me visions of... things worth loving, and things already lost to it.

I want nothing from them. I have no desire. They touch me... and my emptiness clings to them. I've tried meditation and all kinds of exercises to clear my mind but, you know how the carousel goes.

My chest aches and my heart burns, still I do not cry. Even now, I list my own despair, like words are glue and I'm scared it'll come unstuck.

Hope is the only cure for hate, and if I had it, if I had any at all... I'd die today.

I am but a little scampy scamp scampion well raised on salt air and Poppa's good sense, or so I keep tellin' myself when times get tight.

He was right about death, though. Everybody makes it.

It's so easy once you let go.

I'll be out for a rip, my brothers. If I don't come back, reckon the story weren't waitin' on me nohow; and it kept turnin' just fine without me anyway.

- Biffy J.