Epic Tale – The one with the Gateway to Soft Toy Heaven
There was this one time, not so long ago, when The Great Flips had a bad dream one night. That night was like any other night as The Great Flips prepared for bed beadily. She dimmed the lights, locked the door, made herself some hot chocolate, put on her pajamas, and lastly proceeded to snap on her secret princess eyepatch (or perhaps people could start calling it eyepatches, since eyepatch just brings to mind pirates). After barely 2 minutes of soft-singing to herself, she fell into a deep sleep.
And that was when the nightmare happened. Well, technically, it was awhile after she fell asleep since it’s scientifically proven dreams only occur during REM sleep.
Initially in her dream, all was going well, with the usual light whiff of atomic radiation in the cool breeze, accompanied by the bombs ticking and the chattering of AK47s. There Flips was sliding here and flying (this was her dream you know) there, raising her favourite harpoon in the air and chanting a medley of war cries. There she was just minding her own world domination business when suddenly she heard a wail. It was a woeful wail, and it was crying out for help. Thinking it might be her slow-motion sidekick, Pooh, she turned around to look.
But it wasn’t Pooh’s sunshine face staring back at her. Shrouded in bright warm light, the head staring back at her was fuzzy, and she could not quite make out the features. Then in the background, she saw scenery that was breathtaking, almost magical. There was a calm emerald sea and two mountains rose high into the bright blue skies. The mountains formed a pass, allowing the emerald waves to pass between them. Then the bright, fuzzy face said to Flips, “Journey to the Gateway to Soft Toy Heaven. Rescue the King.”
That was all The Great Flips managed to hear. No, the face in the bright light did not fade off as it should have typically. Instead, it was another loud wail that pulled Flips away from her dream.
“No!!!” screamed The Great Flips. “Tell me more! Email me!!!!”
“Flips!!!” wailed Pooh grumpily with sleepy eyes. Flips opened her eyes. But where was Pooh?
“Pooh!!! Pooh?!?!?! Where are you???? I hear you!”
“I’m here, Flips”, replied Pooh dryly and proceeded to snap off the princess eyepatch.
“Flips, we’re all trying to sleep now, you know. It’s like 4 in the morning!” added Pooh, looking cross and sleepy.
“I had a bad dream, Pooh. It was horrible!!!! Someone was stuck somewhere, shouting for help. And I couldn’t do anything!” said Flips sadly, while simultaneously reaching out a flipper steadily towards Pooh and bearded him nonchalantly.
A snort ensued.
“Right…. Okay Flips, best to get back to sleep. Big day tomorrow! We need all the soft toy energy we’ve got. We need to cook pancakes, eat them, and could you believe it, even wash the dishes! Oh bother!”
Flips shouted, “Woah! What Pooh? Repeat! Repeat what you just said!”
Pooh replied, “erm, pancakes? 2 for you and 6 for me? Look, we agreed, you know…”
“No!”
“Fine, we’ll both have 6 then,” answered Pooh. “Diva.” murmured Pooh under his beary breath.
“No, not that! Soft Toy energy!!! Any idea where’s the Gateway to Soft Toy Heaven?” queried The Great Flips. Pooh thought about it earnestly, long and hard.
“Nope.”
Then Pooh looked up hopefully. “Ooh, sounds fun! Are you taking me on a vacation? I’ll seek the oracle for you!”
The Great Flips sighed and looked at the little earnest bear jabbing at the computer furiously. How was she going to tell the poor bear this wasn’t something one might find off the oracle?
“Here you go, Flips!” chirped Pooh proudly.
With utter disbelief, The Great Flips peered at the computer screen. And there the words were-- Gateway to Soft Toy Heaven. It was listed on a page in Wikipedia. There were no pictures, and a very very general and very very vague description which read: Great beautiful place. Seek out this entrance if you desire to travel to a paradise for soft toys.
Disgusted, The Great Flips proceeded to read on further down the page. To her joy, there was an online shop listed which sold the map to the Gateway to Soft Toy Heaven!
“Pooh! Click on that online shop link! There, the one listed as Santa’s Workshop. Oh boy, can you believe how gimmicky some businesses are? Santa’s Workshop… Please….”
“No erm… see, it really is Santa’s online shop.” replied Pooh.
Laughing, The Great Flips said, “no Pooh. Just because this online shop has a picture that looks like Santa Claus doesn’t mean it’s really Santa working there! It’s just some business tactics, you know, out to earn some quick bucks off Christmas. Some people just don’t have creativity when it comes to naming things.”
“No erm, really, I’m telling you, it really is Santa’s online shop. I helped him register the domain name that time. Didn’t want to be left out in this techy age, you know. Besides, we were kinda running out of space for all that letters from pesky children.”
“What….” stammered an astonished Flips.
“There you go!” beamed Pooh proudly as he speedily keyed in Flips’ credit card details into the Buyer Particulars Form and proceeded to press the confirmation button to purchase the map.
As the lightning-quick actions flashed before Flips, she managed to ask, “so if that’s Santa’s online shop, doesn’t that mean we could technically get the map for free, Pooh?”
There was a short polite pause. “Oh.”
But modern technology was too efficient for rectifications to be made, for in an instant, an e-map of the place had arrived in Flips’ e-mail. Of course, with efficiency came a price to pay. And it was a steep one to pay with a credit card that day for Flips.
They opened the e-map to see where Gateway to Soft Toy Heaven lay. And there it was, happily cradled amongst the many small islands near
“Yeah, but I think it might be a better idea to sleep first and head off later on in the morning, Flips.” yawned an exhausted Pooh.
“Yes. I know that. Pooh. That was kinda what I meant,” muttered Flips darkly. She continued saying, “alrighty then, let’s go back to bed! Tomorrow, we, I mean I, book tickets to Krabi! Did we wake up the Lion too? The lights over at the Lion’s Den are still on…”
Without looking out the window, Pooh coolly replied, “that’s okay Flips, we didn’t wake them up. The couple’s having a quarrel there. Something about playing cards in the Den or something. Sue’s not really happy about that. ‘Sue is quite the tigress’ the Lion would say. Fancy that though, an inter-marriage. Definitely very new age!”
The Great Flips thought about it for a while. How was this going to be explained? Calmly, Flips said, “Pooh, it’s an expression. Sue’s not really a tigress.”
“Oh yeah? Then how come she’s got no mane like a lion?”
“Because… Pooh…. Okay, okay, then how come she’s got no tiger stripes eh?”
Pooh laughed and said, “of course she doesn’t have stripes. If she did, she would be called a tiger!”
The Great Flips thought about the Lion, and how good he was a friend to her. He did owe her money still, and had once refused to make her hot chocolate at the Den, on the grounds that it was an outrageous request. Yeah, right. Indeed, he was just not that good a friend to have to go to lengths and make such sacrifices for.
“Right, tigress it is then, Pooh,” The Great Flips said with a smile. “You got me there. Oh, will you look at the time? Better go grab some sleep!”
“Roger, Flips!” Pooh answered merrily and proceeded to head for the door back home when Flips suddenly said, “and Pooh, yes, 6 pancakes for me. See ya!”
The next morning, the toys got up bright and early. After the massive breakfast, the toys took to packing their stuff for an adventure up north in nearby
“All set!”
“Go! Go! Go!”
VVrrrrooom!!
It was not an easy journey getting to Krabi. There were long plane flights and longer car rides. After much motion madness, the toys finally got to Krabi. Now, all they needed was a boat to take them out to sea, out towards Gateway to Soft Toy Heaven which was located somewhere off the sea as was indicated by the e-map.
“Yo ho there! I’m The Great Flips and this is my sidekick. Can we rent your boat and your men to take us out to sea?”
The people Flips were talking to at the docks turned to face the toys. They were tall and big. One of the men looked at the toys and Pooh’s bit of cookie crumble by his mouth and declined. They tried to turn back to loading their big boxes onto the boat.
The Great Flips was not one to give up easily. “Ahem, excuse me, I don’t see why a couple of fishermen would want to reject taking us out to sea. This isn’t the fishing season, you know.”
The big burly men stopped their activities once again, and looked at each other. The 4 men seemed to have started arguing. It was loud but the toys did not understand a word of what they were shouting at each other. However, for the convenience of the story and audience, below is provided the subtitles of the big burlies’ conversation.
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A: I say we not take them! We’re running out of time!
B: Quit whining! We’re supposed to be in disguise! You wouldn’t want to blow our cover!
D: God! Must the women always make the decision for you sissy men? I say we take them! And split the money! The Führer does not need to know!
C: Seig Hail!
A: Alright fine! Take the two of them out to sea. Then we bring cargo to secret hideout Iron Eagle’s Nest. For God’s sake, Heinrich, your Gestapo uniform is sticking out from your bag. And it’s not even starched!
**************************************************
After 5 long minutes, A turned to The Great Flips and said in distorted English, “okay, we fishermen, my woman take you go!”
The toys eyed each other beadily. Then in unison, they chirped, “cool!” and hopped onto the boat. After giving them some directions, the toys sat back and enjoyed the warm sea breeze in excitement, wondering what beckoned them beyond those emerald waves.
About an hour into the journey, all onboard started feeling sleepy. All except Pooh who was peering interestedly over the deck and waving madly at shapes and shadows he decided were probably fishes. Suddenly, Pooh shouted for everyone’s attention, “Lookie there! A ship!”
Indeed, round the corner of one of the many small islands dotting this place, they all saw the ship anchored. The ship had bright lights, and sparkly tunes of Kylie Minogue were playing from it. The toys’ boat pulled up beside the new mysterious ship.
“Hello?”
There was no reply.
Suddenly, from out of the waters a dark shadow lunged out and roared at them. It was unsettling and nerve-wrecking. The eerie scream froze everyone. The shadow turned towards the people on the boat. It was a fat Caucasian man with a set of ridiculous pink scuba diving gear.
Fat Caucasian Man said, “What the bloody hell were you guys doing? I was just coming up from my dive when your boat knocked me on my head! Hello? Pain!” Fat Caucasian Man made an obscene gesture with his fingers to emphasize his point.
The Great Flips looked around, no one said a word. Yup, it was definite. This was definitely an awkward social pause. And she hated it with a passion. Attempting to diffuse it, she said, “Well, we were just trying to pop by to say hello.”
“HELLO!!!!! HELLO!” A voice came from the decks of the big ship. It was followed by a furry blue head with big black eyes that rose from the deck and peered at them. It was beaming and waving madly. In its short, stumpy and equally furry blue paws was a mop.
“That’s Superwobs, does the chores on my ship. Hardworking fella!” Fat Caucasian Man said.
“Flips! Look! He’s super cute! And friendly! Let’s ask Superwobs to join us on our journey!”
“No Pooh, I don’t think we can do that. Pooh, what are you doing, Pooh? Get back into our boat!” Before Flips could get to Pooh, he had run excitedly towards the ship and eagerly climbed onto the anchor rope towards its deck.
“Ho ho! I don’t think so, pal. Superwobs here does all our chores. Besides, you would have to get past my ship captain. And that’s not going to be any easy feat. He’s a semi-retired pirate of
“Hi there! What’s your name?”
Great, thought Flips, Pooh must be saying hi to the Captain now. Hope he doesn’t get his limbs torn or something again. Should have known I would need those damn needles.
When Flips got to Pooh, the Captain was standing in front of Pooh. For a man with a reputation as a semi-retired pirate of
“You no take Superwobs! He’s ours! I Captain Claw! I say no!” shouted the withering old man, who was otherwise also known as the captain.
“5 bucks!” chirped Pooh enthusiastically.
Flips stared at Pooh in horror. The bear had finally gone mad, she thought, taunting an old pirate with a measly sum of money! Argh!
“Deal! Superwobs yours, 5 bucks!” shouted Captain Claw quickly.
In an instant, before anyone could even babble or bat their eyelids, Pooh had whipped out his cockle purse from behind and gave Captain Claw 5 shiny dollar coins. Captain Claw, on his part, unlocked and released Superwobs to Pooh. Merrily, Pooh took Superwobs back to their boat and both of them waved happily at Flips. “HEELLLOOO!!!”
“Whew, that was hard work. That intricate negotiation stuff.” stated a tired-sounding Pooh.
“Yes, Pooh, I can so see.” answered The Great Flips, who was secretly still in disbelief at the absurdity of the whole matter.
“Thank you for rescuing me!!! Are you here to save the King? I’ll help you!!” shouted Superwobs excitedly. Flips and Pooh looked at each other, smiled and echoed in harmony, “sure! Why not?” With that, The Great Flips and her companions set off once again, leaving behind Captain Claw who was laughing deliriously and withdrawing anchor to leave. Fat Caucasian Man was still left in the waters.
“Hello! You can’t do this to me! I’m white man! Listen to me, you! Wait!”
“Bye bye! I rich now! 5 gold coins!
The Great Flips sat beadily in the boat and looked on at this newly recruited member of war. Superwobs was happy and vibrant, laughing and saying hi to everyone onboard, even the suspicious fishermen. He was always cheerful and polite. Yes, Flips thought to herself, I suppose it would do well for the army’s morale to have someone like Superwobs around. Afterall, it would be rather difficult to turn him away after her own sidekick, Pooh, had managed to rescue Superwobs from Captain Claw for a mere 5 bucks.
For a long while, they sailed, seeing small island after small island, each time with hope that it would be the Gateway they sought, but each time only to be disappointed. Finally, Superwobs sat up and pointed ahead with his blue furry paw. “There it is! Gateway to Soft Toy Heaven!”
The sight in front of them was lovely. The cool green waters were calm and soothing. There were seagulls flying lazily above them, with the warm embrace of the sun. The two small islands which formed each side of the Gateway looked old and majestic. They were full of greenery on them, with the occasional monkey or squirrel hopping from branch to branch, looking on at them serenely. It was tranquility. 
“After we pass the Gateway, we will have to travel on foot! That’s the only way to get to Soft Toy Heaven where no humans will ever be able to access!” exclaimed Superwobs excitedly. Thus, the boat pulled up near a small stretch of shore after they cruised through the majestic Gateway, and the toys, together with Superwobs, hopped off.
“Thanks for ride, guys! Here you go, 5 bucks!” said Pooh generously to the fishermen after neatly placing 5 shiny dollar coins from the mighty Republic on their dashboard. With that, he ran stumpily after The Great Flips and Superwobs, leaving behind 4 very stunned pretend fishermen.
The three toys laughed and ran after each other on the soft white sands and walked through thick foliage with luscious tropical fruit growing on them. Pooh was happily chewing on rambutans and longans as they journeyed on. Gradually, they were on the ascent towards somewhere higher up, and it became increasingly misty. The smell of sweet berries was in the air. Time seemed to be absent in there and it was just peaceful and quiet. The three toys then came to a clearing and it was a wondrous sight. There were little houses built right into the trunks of mighty trees (think Wind In the Willows, what? You thought this was an original concept, come on). The many tree-houses formed a picturesque landscape of idyllic village life in olden days long gone from this world, it was a breathtaking, pristine realm where the fat ugly hands of reality have not gotten to. It was….
“You got change?”
“I’m sorry, what?” exclaimed Flips, who was rudely interrupted from her thoughts of this perfect world by a voice behind them.
Turning around, she saw an old man with dirty stubble, clutching a brown paper bag with a bottle in it. His stench reminded one of olden days too as he proceeded to repeat, “you got change?”
The Great Flips tried to quickly grab the two other curious toys and head off before more 5 bucks came out of cockle purses, when a thought struck her.
“Say, old man, do you know where is the King?” queried Flips politely.
There was a short pause, followed by a rude burp.
“You got change?”
Argghh!!!!!
The three toys ran off abreast from the mad man.
They came to a tree-house that seemed to exude an air of royalty and command. Could this be it? Could this be where the King is? With a steady flipper, Flips signaled to Pooh to open the door, and Pooh with shaking paws shoved Superwobs to the doorstep. Superwobs pushed the door open without a second thought.
There was a welcoming fire inside, and the living room was tidy and inviting.
“Nice, not bad,” commented Flips.
“Yeah, I’m sure that’s what Hansel and Gretel thought of the Gingerbread House before the witch tried to eat them.” Pooh added helpfully.
A voice boomed from the armchair by the fire, “who are you? Brave warriors, have you come to seek me and to heal my land?”
Wow, thought Flips, does sound like what a King would say alright. Well okay, seems like this year’s adventure is a whole lot easier to solve than past years’. With trepidation, Flips and company approached the armchair. “Are you the King?”
“I certainly am. Though sadly, I cannot say I have done an outstanding job of governing my land. It has become infertile and reduced to nothing more than a wasteland. But now that you have come to bring salvation, I will finally be able to restore the lands back to its former glory. No more shall I be the Fisher King.”
“I’m sorry…. What?” asked Flips. Something didn’t seem to quite connect there. “Was it you I saw in my dreams? The one in the fuzzy bright light? The voice who asked me to save you?”
“Good Heavens, no! The Fisher King does not send out messages of distress! My job is to just sit in my sterile kingdom and await someone to bring salvation and pardon the wounded Fisher King, so that the glory of my lands may be restored.”
“Great.”
Superwobs, once again, helpfully said, “Oops, looks like you’re not who we’re looking for, sir. Sorry!”
“I see. If you have come for the other King, then you must first silence the Siren. The Siren is a guardian device which screeches at intruders to keep them away and to safeguard the other King. The Siren is located down the main road in a cave. Above its entrance, there is a sign that says ‘Fisher-Price’.
“Ho ho, nice going there, old man. Trying to trick us into going to a shop you own, eh?” Pooh demanded hotly. “Think we would miss the connection in the names, eh?”
“No. No.” muttered an exasperated Fisher King, “that’s Fisher-Price and I am the Fisher King – person who is eternally maimed and if you asked the right question, which by the way you did not at any point of time, would have healed me and my lands. Now get out of my dominion!”
“Okay! We’re leaving! There’s no need to shout!” said Pooh. “Thanks anyway. Do you wanna come along?”
The Fisher King reached for a coffee mug and threw at the three toys. Expertly, they ducked and ran out in an instance. Pooh even managed to retrieve the colourful coffee mug and stuffed it into Flips’ bag as a souvenir.
“Pooh! You don’t ask a lame person if they ‘wanna come along’! They would if they could!” screamed a frenzied Flips. "Dominion? Hmm, nice fanciful term though."
Pooh raised a trademark eyebrow and earnestly asked, “well why not? The Lion’s lame too but he walks, right? Have you heard the jokes he tells before the beer, oh boy…”
There was no verbal reply to that but The Great Flips was mentally tearing her tuff of blue hair out at that precise moment of excruciating pain. It was then, the three companions found themselves at the entrance of Fisher-Price. When they were about to enter, there came an ear-splitting screech from deep in the cave. It sounded like the time the Lion got drunk and attempted to sing ‘Wings beneath My Wings’. The sheer mental horror inflicted on them and their ears was enough to force them to back off.
“What are we going to do? How will we get by the Siren?” asked Superwobs.
“Well, now that the Fisher King has told us about the Siren and its screeches, we can’t send Pooh in anymore. Hmmm…”
Pooh looked on at Flips and nodded in agreement, though he actually had no idea what he was agreeing about. Just then, Flips shouted excitedly, “I know! Perfect! I have these!”
Having said that, she whipped out from her awesome big bag, a pair of pink earmuffs for all to behold.
Pooh giggled and said, “did those come in the box set together with the princess eyepatch?”
“Shut up, Pooh.”
Swiftly, The Great Flips put on the pair of pink earmuffs snugly on herself and using military flipper-signals gestured for the rest to sit here and wait for her to return. She was going in alone on this one. What might await her in the dark cave ridiculously named Fisher-Price? No one knows. Except, the writer, of course. (or does he?)
With the earmuffs on, the powerful screeches of the Siren could not affect The Great Flips, who was making steady progress into the dark cave. With the powerful magnum-torchlight she had bought herself at the gift shop of the US Navy Seals, she saw a button in the wall on the left of the cave. It read ‘OFF’. Flips bravely tapped it and that stopped the Siren! The ultrasonic screeches halted. And right in front of Flips, there was a room that was lit and Flips walked slowly into it.
In the centre of the room, on a large pedestal, there was a tiny spaceship. It was in vibrant clashing colours which did not seem like they went well together at all. Flips went closer to inspect it. Through the clear glass on the wing of the spaceship, she saw someone hunched up in a corner.
“Hi… Were you the one who called up for help in my nightmare?”
The little someone turned his head and squeaked in reply, “why yes, I used the last bar of battery on my iphone to send out a video call of distress. By the way, I’m Elvis. Elvis the King! Pleased to meet you, thank you very much!”
Flips swiftly but dryly replied, “you don’t say… wow, hi… What a coincidence, Elvis the King huh? Inspirational name.”
“Could you kindly help me out here? I’m kinda stuck between my sandbath palace and the corner of my cool spaceship.” Elvis quipped.
“What’s the matter? Didn’t you try a little ‘Jailhouse Rock’?” giggled Flips evilly. She reached in a flipper and gave the sandbath a gentle shove and Elvis came free.
“Thank you for saving me! Thank you very much!”
“Okay, for starters, you could repay me by not repeatedly saying ‘thank you very much’. I have enough of that back home with a pale-yellow impersonator singing and dancing on my couch.” Flips muttered with a frozen pained look.
“Sure. But to repay you, allow me to draw a portrait of you and put it up on our Perpendicular Plaque in commemoration of your brave deeds!”
“Urrm, its ok, I don’t really feel comfortable having my portrait done…” Flips said nervously.
“It’s alright, I promise you it would look great! There will be lots of colours and it will be grand!”
“Really? Hmmm, grand eh? Like Warlord-grand? Okay then! Let’s move, people!!”
The excited Flips stood in her best pose and Elvis proceeded to capture the image of The Great Flips onto the Perpendicular Plaque, which used to be called the Parallel Plaque but folks realize it is not parallel to anything so it would be just silly and absurd to call it the Parallel Plaque and thus it was renamed the Perpendicular Plaque.
It would have turned out a magnificent piece of art except for the fact that in reality, Elvis the King did not have really great eyesight. And that was how he got himself stuck there in the first place. Also, the painful fact that Flips had forgotten to take off her pink earmuffs did not help. Thus, when the portrait was done, it did indeed have an explosion of colours, just that with a pink backdrop inspired by the earmuffs, it just seemed to lack a little element of ‘Grand Warlord’.
Looking at the portrait, Flips sighed. With this many years of being with Pooh, she has learned that sometimes, certain tragedies are unavoidable, and if you deny destiny, it will only come back to nip you harder in your soft toy butt. She smiled, and thanked Elvis for a well done piece of work.
Just then, The Great Flips heard the sounds of soft toy steps and sure enough, Pooh and Superwobs had come into the room looking for Flips.
“Flips, you’ve gone a long time!” said Pooh crossly with his paws on his hips.
“Well, I’m sorry I made you guys worry…”
“It’s time for lunch, you know.”
“Right. Anyway, Elvis, where are you going, now that you’ve been free?”
“Well,” said Elvis thoughtfully, “I was thinking to myself, would you guys be ok with taking me along? I love adventures! Besides, my space machine is spoilt.”
“Space machine? Oh, you mean a spaceship. I believe that is the proper common term everyone else uses.” replied Flips. She thought about it for a while, and continued, “sure! Why not eh? Everyday is an adventure where we come from, especially if you live with a weird bear for a sidekick!”
Pooh did not pay attention to Flips’ little evil joke on him for he was fully focused on transforming the last cookie he had into energy to keep his frail-from-hunger soft toy body going.
Thus, once again, we have come to the end of another epic tale which ends happily and merrily with everything working out well. That day, Flips and Pooh were happy, for they now have two new sparkly members into their soft toy world of more bad jokes and cool food.
