By Wes Parish

I was looking for a coffee in this strange part of the world that had become mysteriously detached from mundane reality about seventy years ago, and then had equally mysteriously, re-attached itself to the rest of the world. But there was only one cafe-come-pub down this street, and it looked to be closed.

I had unexpectedly fallen across the chasm between the world and this re-attached part, quite by accident. This is what comes of boasting to your mates that you can get closer than anybody else without being dragged across.

I wandered closer, and I heard a little bit of music. Some miniscule humanoid creatures were dancing to the tune an old man was playing on his fiddle. He saw me, and when he stopped for a drink, he waved me over.

"I see you're a newcomer," he said without preamble. "What do you think of our mates, the Oompa-Loompas?"

"The Oompa-Loompas?"

"Bit too small to call them hobbits."

"I see."

"No, you don't. I call them Oompa-Loompas, because I'd read that book as a kid, before everything went skewiffy back then."

A waitress came out and put some more drinks out, some very, very small cups for the dancers, who climbed up a long track to the table-top when they sat and drank.

"Another, for our new mate," the old man said, waving me to a seat.

"Let's see, I don't know your name?"

"Stevan MacDonald," I replied. "And you?"

"Constantine Economopolis," he replied.

Then the waitress brought out a big cup of steaming hot coffee, or at least that's what it smelt like.

"And this is my granddaughter Helen. Take some weight off your feet, darling. Sit and chat with your granddad."

"And get fired? Not now, Granddad."

"Pity."

She turned and went back into the apparently closed cafe.

***

A pause in the conversation while I cautiously sipped the apparent coffee. It was coffee!

The Oompa-Loompas began chattering away, and after a while turned to Constantine with a question, which they asked solemnly, with their biggest with a deep voice — for an Oompa-Loompa — posed it to him. He answered, and then turned back to me.

"That reminds me, the annual Oompa-Loompa test of manhood is coming up soon. The hunt for the wumpus. You might like to ask about joining."

"Why? If it's the Oompa-Loompa test of manhood, surely they don't want any humans messing things up?"

"And that's where you're wrong. Before we ... left the rest of the world for those years, they'd lived happily, hunting wumpuses without any problems. When we entered the scene, we brought along some nasty creatures, the grues, who enjoyed gobbling up Oompa-Loompas. So we decided to help them out and provide a guard while they're underground in the wumpus cave."

I rubbed my chin. I hadn't managed to find a razor during the few days I'd been across the chasm, so I was rubbing stubble ... my mates would laugh themselves silly.

"I'll tell you about my last adventure on the wumpus hunt."

***

He looked skyward, rubbed his hands together, cleared his throat, then began. "There were three Oompa-Loompas reaching manhood that time. It was several decades ago — Oompa-Loompas refuse to let anyone who's married on one of their wumpus hunts — and of course, the young human women tend to look on human survivors of wumpus hunts with great interest, so you generally don't last unmarried for over two such hunts.

"Well, anyway, we set off, two of us to each Oompa-Loompa, to where the cavern yawned in the side of Black Mountain — though some do call it Banks Peninsula — and lit our torches before we entered. It was cold, and damp, and we could see the light glittering from where the moisture collected on the cave sides.

"Now, wumpus caves are not your ordinary caves. They seem to have extra dimensions here and there. And the wumpus hides in those dimensions. So you have to be careful turning corners. And that's where we ran into trouble. The first corner we turned, was a mirror, and we could see ourselves in the stone. We turned the other way, and went that way.

Though I had this funny feeling that we were being watched while we were doing so.

"One Oompa-Loompa started chattering loudly, to his mates, and they all clustered around him, sniffing loudly. We couldn't smell anything. But something grabbed my leg, and I turned, coming face-to-face with a grue, and it was going for my neck! I brought up my club and it bit that instead. One of my mates clubbed it, and then we turned and ran, only to come face-to-face with ourselves again!

"We turned another direction, and ran, then one of the Oompa-Loompas gave a great shout, and the next thing we knew, we were faced by a couple of wumpuses. We stayed well back — hunting wumpuses is not our job, after all, merely defending against grues.

"With a great shout, the Oompa-Loompas declared they had killed the wumpuses, and we turned to go home.

"But at what a cost in human lives! When we finally got outside, we did a head count, and of the six who had gone in to protect the Oompa-Loompas, only eighteen survived!"

I finished my coffee, and stood up. "I'm not sure I believe you."

"I try not to believe it myself, but whenever I find myself face-to-face with myself, well, I grin, and I do too, and I go my merry ways."

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