"The Sad Tale Of Woba Womba"
“Grrrowwwlll!” shouted the creature.
Startled, I jumped back a bit. The creature appeared to be made entirely out of cardboard boxes. He had a square head with little round eyes. His snarling mouth was rectangular and looked like a flap hanging from his box-like head. His body was rectangular, as were his legs and paws. His little rectangular tail resembled a thin shoebox sticking up from his body. He was brown in color and after a few seconds of general snarling and growling, he began shouting at us again.
“Icky! Icky! Beta! Gumm!”
“Translation?” I quickly said to Rob.
“Oh,” said the creature, quite casually, “you speak English. And after I went through all of that ‘icky gumm’ stuff. for nothing” His expression softened into a smile. He had a very friendly and sophisticated looking face (for a bunch of boxes).
“Rob, is this the womba?” asked Melissa.
“Woba Womba, my dear. Welcome to my home,” the creature smiled. He lowered the barber’s chair to the ground, got up and began walking over to us on all fours.
“Analysis, Rob,” I said nervously, as the womba got closer and closer.
“The womba is genuinely friendly. No deception detected. His outer shell is indeed vulcanized,” Rob reported, almost sounding proud (if that’s possible for a robot).
“A very bright model. The JPM-3 or 4?” asked Woba, “I never could get those models straight.” As he said this, he tilted his head curiously to one side as he looked at Rob.
“I’m a JPM-4,” stated Rob.
“Wait a minute,” said Lisa, jumping up in the cart. She hit the side of the Multi-Purpose Protection Field. “Turn this thing off, Larry.” she added irritatedly.
Without thinking, I quickly lowered the field and Lisa jumped out the cart to continue her making her point to Woba. (Unbeknownst to her, I put a small field back up around her, just in case this womba wasn’t all he appeared to be. As the others jumped out the cart, I did the same for them.)
“You’re supposed to be dangerous,” Lisa continued, “you know, like the signs out in the forest: ‘WARNING!,’ ‘BEWARE!’ Besides, how do you know what model the robot is? And how do you know English?”
“One question at a time, my friend,” started the womba, calmly. “First of all, call me Woba. And you are?”
“I’m Cindy and this is....”
“Cin! Answer our questions first, Woba” I insisted. Lisa and Melissa climbed out of the cart to join us (and up went their individual Multi-Purpose Protection Fields—I was beginning to enjoy this spell.)
“Very well,” sighed Woba, “the signs are meant to scare away evil trespassers. Especially evil ‘green’ trespassers.” On that statement his voice took on a tone of anger and his eyes squinted (as well as boxes can squint).
“Green trespassers?” questioned Melissa, “Could you possibly mean the Green Devil?”
“That’s him. Lived Neerg. A green devil. I hate him.”
“What did he do to you?” asked Lisa.
“Long, long ago,” started Woba, “he came to and destroyed my peaceful little country of Wombonia.”
“Wombonia?” whispered Lisa, trying to choke back an untimely chuckle.
“Shhhh!” cautioned Melissa.
“He destroyed the whole place,” continued Woba in an increasingly solemn tone, “killed everyone. Big meanie. I was out on a field trip at the time. When I returned, it was gone. I fled here to these woods...”
“The Deadly Forest?” interrupted Cindy.
“It acquired that name over the years, so I just let it stick. It’s not deadly. It’s just dead. There’s nothing here but me.”
Woba started to cry cube shaped tears. Cindy bent down to pet him on the head, but found that her hand couldn’t penetrate the field. Woba tried to rub his head up against Cindy, but neither could make contact.
“Oh, you poor thing,” comforted Cindy, “don’t cry.”
“I can’t help it. Do you know how many other visitors I might have had if it wasn’t for those signs scaring everyone away. It’s been so lonely here.”
“Why didn’t you just take them down or leave?” asked Lisa.
“That mean Lived Neerg was still out there. If he’d known I escaped, he’d have come after me. That’s why I put up the signs and hid out in this cave. It is the most comfortable cave, don’t you think so?”
“Rob, are you detecting any deception?” I asked.
“Larry!” started Melissa, “how can you be so insensitive?”
“I’m not insensitive,” I defended, “I’m just being cautious.”
“Negative,” replied Rob. “No deception detected.”
“See,” chided Melissa.
“Oh, it’s going to be so nice to have company!” Woba said excitedly, clapping his little rectangular front paws together. In one grand sweeping motion, I lowered all of the Multi-Purpose Protection Fields.
“And magical company at that!” he added, as the force fields came down with a hum.
With the force fields finally down, we were able to get a sense of the air in Woba’s cave. It was a glorious 72-degrees and had the sweet smell of lilacs. The powdery substance at our feet was indeed like snow, only it was warm instead of cold.
“Well,” I started, “I’m afraid we can’t stay and visit. We think that Lived Neerg is heading to Living Land. He’s on a quest to find a mythological creature called a koleapus.”
“Oh, they were fun!” said Woba.
“You’ve seen one?” said Lisa.
“Seen one? I know one! One of my best friends was a koleapus,” stated Woba. “Now what was his name?” he pondered.
“At least we know that the myth is a reality,” said Melissa.
“Maybe, I could come with you?” suggested Woba.
“Sure,” said Cindy, “you could show us the way to Living Land. That way we won’t end up in the wrong place again.”
“Oh, dear, dear, I’m afraid not. I’ve been in this woods for deefons. I don’t remember the way to Living Land. I’ll be oh-so lost outside of this cave.”
“What’s a deefon?” asked Lisa.
“Probably large quantities of quans,” smiled Melissa.
“51-quans,” stated Rob.
“Can I come anyway, please, please, please,” begged Woba.
“I don’t see why not,” I said.
“You can even ride on my back,” suggested Woba, rubbing his head up against my thigh like a big cat.
“All right, all right,” I laughed, “you can come; just don’t do that.”
“Goody!” clapped Woba again, “I’m leaving this cave!”
He paused for a moment and looked around his cave. His eyes got very sad looking and he shed some more cubes of tears.
“Oh, I’m leaving this cave,” he sighed.
“A very emotional creature,” noted Lisa.
I strapped Rob back into the harness and the girls climbed back aboard the cart. Melissa and Lisa sat up front, but Cindy liked the bucket seats in the back. I mounted Woba and found that he was indeed made of what seemed to be rubber. His sides were soft, so the edges of this box-like body were not at all uncomfortable to sit on. In fact, one would say his rubber body was very ‘form-fitting’ as it contoured under my weight.
As we headed out of the cave, we learned that Woba had learned to speak English at the University of Wombonia. He never had much call to use it (as it was what he referred to as an ‘ancient, primitive’ language), but he said it had been one of his favorites. He also informed us that all of the growls we had heard on the way into his cave were recordings he had rigged-up.
As we cleared the front entrance of the cave, the cliff silently closed behind us. We continued along the path.
“What was this place called before the Deadly Forest?” asked Melissa.
“It was known as the False Forest,” replied Woba, “but with all of my scary signs, the name had gradually changed.”
“Well, that would explain the synthesized birds sounds,” commented Lisa.
“Not to mention that lack of everyone’s favorite,” smiled Melissa.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Geological formations,” she laughed.
We continued on through the forest until we reached the edge of it. As we exited, the constant sounds of the forest—which by now we had become accustomed to—vanished as quickly as they had original appeared. All was silent once again. The sky above had not changed, the suns had not moved, and the color of everything once again returned to black and white and shades of grey.
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