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“Rewellagans,” insisted five-and-a-half year old Joannie Palmer as she pointed up at the machine. She had led me into a glade I’d never visited before, one covered with several varieties of long grasses and surrounded by tall but otherwise unremarkable trees.

“I can see that.” As her Grandpa, I’m expected to understand everything even when I don’t have a clue. “But what is it?” I knew what it was and it was impossible. Joannie’s “Rewellagans” was a six-meter tall humanoid robot, but something out of an old 1950s B-science fiction film. It’s technology that had never existed and could never exist.

Don’t you see it on the machine’s right shoulder. No, on our right. It’s the robot’s left shoulder.”

She kept pointing as if by sheer effort she could make me see it.

At first, I thought the two eyes in the dome-like head were glowing, but they were just reflecting sunlight. The shoulders and upper arms were covered with moss and vines with sprouting red and white flowers. The clouds framing it above stretched across a clear blue sky. Carefree gulls were sailing just below them like angels.

Then I saw something move right where my granddaughter said it was. It wasn’t the robot. It was something alive.

“Your Rewellagan is an animal.”

She looked at me, her youthful face a study in exasperation. “Rewellagans, Grandpa. There’s more than one.”

I turned my attention back to the flowers on the robot and the fox-sized furry beast. Sure enough, there were two of them. I took off my glasses and wiped the lens on the tail of my shirt. Putting them back on, I caught sight of two little heads below the adult Rewellagans. “A family.”

“I told you, Grandpa. It’s just like Ms. Liu said. Evolution is still working. New animals are coming to replace the ones that went away.”

“Went extinct is what your teacher probably said.”

“Yes, that word.”

“Maybe the robot brought them from another world,” I teased.

“Don’t be silly, Grandpa. That’s just some statue that got built a long time before I was born.”

“How did you find it?”

“I was playing.”

“You shouldn’t be playing so far from town all alone. There might be scarier things out here than Rewellagans.”

“I got lost but then found my way back. Do you know what this used to be, Grandpa?”

I pulled my handheld from my hip pocket and opened the mapping app. We wouldn’t have GPS again until someone figured out how to make rockets and satellites, but the cell system went out this far. All of the old geographical and city maps had been scanned and uploaded into the township servers.

I started to laugh. “This fine fellow is all that’s left of the Central City Science Fiction and Fantasy Museum. I’d forgotten all about it. Robby here was built in the middle of the plaza.”

“Can we still call him that? Robby is a good name for where the Rewellagans live.”

“Sure we can.” The curious creatures hadn’t retreated so I used my phone to take several photos. “I suppose we should show these to someone who can do a better job of studying the Rewellagans.”

“Can I take them home? I think they’re cute.”

“I thought you said Robby was their home.” I looked down and she gave me her best pout.

“Well…maybe I could bring them to visit my bedroom.”

“Maybe we should get back home ourselves. It’s almost lunchtime and your Mom’s making your favorite.

“Sushi! Yay! Let’s go, Grandpa.”

She turned back the way we came and made a dash for the woods.

“Have mercy on an old man’s knees and back, Joannie,” I called, but she had already disappeared into the leafy shadows.

I started walking after her lamenting what we had lost. Joannie would never know the world I grew up in, but she was learning to cherish what was growing out of its ashes.

I wrote this for the Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie Saturday Mix writing challenge for 2 September 2023. In this case, we are to take the nonsense word “rewellagans,” define it, then use it in a poem or story. I decided to define the word within the context of the story.

I wasn’t sure what I wanted “rewellagans” to mean, so I dug up some visual aids and chose the one you see above. Click the link I provided to find out more including any other stories based on this nonsense word.