Mental gymnastics is no fun fair, and Rip Van Winkle had lost his mind. Certainly, It would help here to elucidate on the events that led to his losing his mind. Rip Van Winkle, after some wild tantrums from his wife, had left his home into the rocky fields of Northeastern America where he lived. Often, at six, the villagers hung waking fires on eaves. And by this time, Rip was almost still asleep.
Not a man too keen on domestic affairs, he left the foot of the Catskill Mountains where his house was, and went with his dog Wolf down the grassy path that led to the silent American woods. The inhabitants of this mountainous region were indeed a happy-go-lucky bunch of people, except for a select few individuals who often bothered about life and other things pertinent to wealth.
This geographical region had trees adorning the streets, and sometimes a villager was found resting under the shade of one of those trees during hot afternoons. Every change of season, every change of weather, indeed every hour of the day, produces some change in the magical hues and shapes of these mountains. No one was certain if it was Rip's weak strength of character that made him a henpecked husband. But, certainly, Rip had his foibles.
The great error in Rip’s composition was an insuperable aversion to all kinds of profitable labour. It could not be from the want of assiduity or perseverance; for he would sit on a wet rock, with a rod as long and heavy as a Tartar’s lance, and fish all day without a murmur, even though he should not be encouraged by a single nibble.
He would carry a fowling piece on his shoulder for hours together, trudging through woods and swamps, and up hill and down dale, to shoot a few squirrels or wild pigeons. He would never refuse to assist a neighbour even in the roughest toil, and was a foremost man at all country frolics for husking Indian corn, or building stone-fences; the women of the village, too, used to employ him to run their errands, and to do such little odd jobs as their less obliging husbands would not do for them.
In a word, Rip was ready to attend to anybody’s business but his own. But as to doing family duty, and keeping his farm in order, he found it impossible. And so, trudging into the woods, just to hunt squirrels with his dog, he heard some strange voice calling his name. Desperate to know who the fellow was, Rip made his way through the winding rocky terrain only to find a man carrying a keg of wine and asking to be helped with it to the other side of the rocks (from which thunderous noises were emanating).
Rip obliged, and then met strange-looking men playing nine pins. He sat on a stone and observed these men. And when they began drinking from the keg, he joined them till he was drunk and in need of fervent sleep. No one knew for sure what sort of liquid he had imbibed. But when Rip woke up to the blazing sun, his clothes were worn-out, his beard a foot long. Apparently, he had slept for twenty years.
And when he returned to his village at the Catskill mountains, people struggled to recognise him. A villager, while Rip tried hard to comprehend the enormous developmental changes that had taken place in his absence, began to enquire if he voted in the recently concluded election. Rip oblivious of the American Revolution that had taken place stated apprehensively that he was a loyal subject of George III.
The fellow who asked considered him to be quite insane and so left him alone. And as Rip went about talking to other villagers, he stumbled upon a young man who shared his semblance and name. A young woman then stated that her father was Rip Van Winkle, who has been missing for twenty years, and an old woman recognized him as Rip.
The young woman and the young Rip were his children, and the former had named her infant son after him as well. Old Rip then was told that most of his friends and neighbours had died while fighting in the civil war. Perturbed, Rip spent the next few days hiding in solitary confinement. And when complaints about his solitude became too much of a thing, Rip gave himself to farmwork. But, more often than not, his mind seemed to be elsewhere.
He, allegedly, had lost his mind. Consequently, he seemed to be looking for it: at his workplace (which was the farm), at the cathedral, at the village square, at the hospital. Desperately, he searched for it. At his workplace (a half acre of land), he was seeing something that looked like it in the smile of a female labourer (but was discouraged by the cathedral's cleric who was of the opinion that he was possessed by some unclean spirit he termed the “womanizing spirit.”)
At his village, his people made sacrifices to see if they could find his mind floating in the witchdoctor’s pot and magically retrieve it and save him. But no, not a single part of his mind was there. And every day, his mindless jibbering got worse. The doctor at the hospital believed he needed psychoanalysis, and believed he needed rehabilitation. But old Rip did not know which of these four to pursue earnestly. And that should be expected of a man who truly had lost his mind.
Still looking for his mind and all the answers to the arcane drinking saga that had left him sleeping for many years, Rip Van Winkle woke one morning and bade his villagers an unreturned goodbye and went out in deep ponderance, staggering down the Catskill Mountains of Northeastern New York and then finding a camel-rider who rode him for weeks through the mountains till he finally arrived in Transylvania in a rusty old ship called The Gusty Sail Us. He had paid for this ride with the coins he had found in his worn-out old clothes.
With his footlong beard that had turned mighty gray now tied to resemble a chignon, Rip stepped out of the old ship onto the windy land of Transylvania. He had heard wondrous tales of this place, so his memory tells him. And he heard, somehow, that it was a land full of wild dreams and eerie, beautiful, tall trees that danced to the music of the wind at night.
A place where the sunset was every man's dream for an evening repose from a day's toiling. He had also heard, more importantly, of the kettles of Transylvanian tea that granted youthfulness, and this made him look forward to the day he would set foot upon the land. It was his raison d'etre. It appeared to him now, more so, that he was satisfying his wanderlust.
Back then, that is before he slept and woke up to find himself old and a lot of his life wasted without his notice, Rip had never heard of a thing called a vampire. Not once. So stepping foot upon Transylvanian land, Rip held his chest and breathed in the lavender-scented air that was all about him.
The afternoon sun was cool and mild, and had some sort of soothing-stimulus feel to his aging Caucasian skin like the feathery touch of some fabric. Down along his line of vision was a quaint little house surrounded by slender conifer trees. And it looked as though those trees held some deep importance to the inhabitants of this house.
And it was towards this house that Rip Van Winkle, peradventure, saw his redemption waiting. He was tired and needed a good cup of cold water, or maybe just anything stirred to some creamy perfection. But as he slouched towards the waiting house, he felt a tingling sensation in his ear. He patted his ear lightly and then wondered what the inhabitant of the house would look like.
The ambience was all-too-inviting. There were these branches up to a noble height, and some fell and lorded themselves all over the entire house. Rip rapped on the door and waited for a minute or so. He rapped again when there was no reply.
But yet again, the door did not move nor was there any foot out to answer him. So tired to stand under the sun, Rip went in – albeit uninvited – to meet a strange man sitting dreamily upon a cane chair, a sickly look upon his face. Upon the table next to him was a chalice with caked red liquid on the sides. Old Rip walked carefully to meet the man where he sat in the dim-lit expanse of room. He was a vampire.
"Excuse me, sir." he said, bending over to look into the man's eyes. "I need some room to spend the approaching night. This is my first visit to Transylvania. Heard Transylvanians are quite a healthy bunch of good Samaritans. I shall take it upon myself then to verify this."
"You heard right." the man said, cocking his head back. "I must have slept too much not to have heard you." Then, tiredly, he stood to his feet and went to show old Rip a decent little room with two oddly-carved ebony windows. "So, what brings you to Transylvania? Are you a wanderer." asked the vampire, as Rip dressed the bed with red floral designs.
"Well, like you, I have slept for too long – apparently not less than you have. Then I woke up to discover I have become the man that I am. Sometimes I wish I were dead. But more often than not, waking up to reality is all I do when I open my eyes."
"Well, your woes are nothing compared to mine. My name's Draco. I shall tell you nothing about it, except that I sleep every afternoon and find my energy coming back to me in the dead of night. Perhaps we are like two doors leading to one room, for we share a semblance of malady."
"Aye, I reckon." Old Rip said bemusedly. "Please, have you some cup of water to spare?"
"How shall I say nay to you, my friend?" said the host. "You can have as much water as you want for every passing hour. Keep your thirst, for I shall not be long." And with this, the strange man left Rip and was soon back with a flagon of icy liquid that tasted so delicious when it first hit the buds of Rip Van Winkle.
"Oh, what marvellous gift have your hands wrought!" Old Rip remarked, holding the hand of his host. "For never in my life have I tasted a drink so good. May the heavens bear me witness this day that I shall give anything to know your recipe. Heavens know I am not a man inclined to flattery. I beseech you then to tell me your wondrous recipe. Tell me and I shall keep it to myself until the day that I shall creep into my sepulchre."
His host smiled a mysterious smile, and then tapped old Rip upon his shoulder. "It is true telling you shall not kick up the dust in my eyes, but it is a secret recipe which I shall not, for all the tea in China, reveal to you. Enjoy your stay and do let me know if you need anything that may require the attention of a host."
***
It so happened that when morning came, old Rip found sores upon his skin. And moreso, a black bird stood on the windowsill watching quietly. And the bird, apparently, was the Transylvanian host. He left the odd room to search for his benefactor. And upon several utterances of his name without a single response, old Rip stepped outside to look around. He had not been outside for long when he happened upon two dwarves wearing pumpkin-made helmets and asking if he was drunk to be standing in front of Lord Draco's crib. But he did not take their comments seriously, instead he took the chance to enquire about the Transylvanian tea. One of the dwarves seemed perplexed while the other one thought old Rip to be a bumbling old fool to believe there was a tea with such potency in the land of Transylvania. They parted ways with him, hurriedly going towards the mountainous horizon. And just then, Draco stepped out to invite Rip for a meal.
Inside the house, old Rip sat tiredly upon a seat facing a long table. And for the first time, he could see his host was in good spirits and looked much stronger than when he had met him. In front of him was a plate of reddish stuff garnished with vegetables. Old Rip dipped his hand and ate ravenously – stopping only sometimes to praise his host's culinary skills and the taste of the drink he had so fallen in love with. When he was done, he was almost bloated like a toad – and upon such gluttonous fatigue requested that he lie upon his bed for a rest. Draco excused him and cleared up the table.
"Why should I deny you your rest?" he said. "Go, for often does merry come with slumber."
And with that, Rip was upon his bed lost to the tiredness of his body. And as he lay upon the bed, he began to hear a voice saying, as if to him:
"I am cursed, forever bound to the night. Each kindness is an open wound, a twist in the belly of something sinister." he heard. But he assumed it was the liquor, even though the voice had been Draco's. And then the voice continued, this time as though being sung.
Sometimes, the things that go bump in the wee of night
Are no monsters.
They are people
Trapped
By wild circumstances
Beyond their control.
Aye,
I shall not be blamed for being nocturnal –
Neither shall I be blamed for sipping the liquid tissues of man.
And yet, he could not believe Draco could compose such a macabre song. In fact, to him, Draco was such a little cherub in oversized human flesh. And each morning, Rip found he was weaker than the previous one – and his host was getting healthier like summer blossoms. And then one day, he chastised himself and walked outside his cursed refuge – his skin a potpourri of sores. He hoped that leaving the little odd house under the slender conifer trees could lead to some form of salvation. And as he walked with his hairy chest bare, some dark monstrous birds swooped down upon him, attacking him till he lost consciousness. And when he opened his eyes again, he was in the same old house – Draco drinking in a chair just next to him.
"Oh!" exclaimed old Rip on his pillow. "How did it ever come to this? How does one even tell this kind of story? How does one even begin ?"
Bio:
Marvel Chukwudi Pephel, also known as Poet Panda, is a Nigerian biochemist, writer and poet. He has contributed research papers to the field of Biochemistry as Nwachukwu Godslove Pephel. As a poet, Pephel's work explores themes of love, life, nature, and social issues, with a unique blend of creativity and scientific insight. His poetry is characterized by its lyrical style, depth, and emotional resonance. His work is a testament to the intersection of art and science. He is a fan of the surrealist painter Salvador Dali, and writers Helen Oyeyemi, Ray Bradbury, Irving Washington, Edgar Allan Poe, Frank G. Slaughter and Philip K. Dick. He calculates what he calls "Creative Functions", an experimental but effective way of writing short story endings before their beginnings.