Rip Van Winkle, As It Would Happen Today. Essay, Research Paper

Well I guess it this all started yesterday, that s twenty years ago to you. Sounds weird right? Well you just wait until you hear the whole thing. The date January 23,1999 and I had spent the whole say helping one of my friends with a little honey-do projects that he s old lady had been nagging him on. On my way home I met peculiar fellow, he announced himself as Derrick Knickerbocker, and looked like he had just gotten out of the worst disco rave ever known to man. He said that the most amazing thing had happened to him and it should only be January 1979, well I may be carefree but I pay attention enough to know what year I am living in, and I was most certainty aware that it was not 1979! Using my common sense I took him for the con man he appeared to be and continued walking down the road to my house. After some time of listening to this lunatic rant and rave about how he meet this guy named Lip or Chip or something like that, and how Chip had given him the whatever that made him go to sleep and wake up twenty years later. I was busy giving your standard Uh Huh , Oh Really! type of remarks to notice what he was saying. But then I realized that he wasn t trying to sell me anything, beg for change or convert me to some religion. That is about the time he got to the part that really caught my attention. How good it felt to be rid of his nagging wife. I didn t waste any time and asked him to take me to the place where he was put into a twenty-year bliss, regarding my remark as rather strange he took me anyway. Now don t get me wrong, I care for my wife, but she just doesn t understand me. I didn t realize how much I would miss her until much later. Like little kids sneaking candy we slowly and carefully made our way through the forest to the spot where he said he had been resting. He spoke of the place very hatefully, but like most people that don t know what they want I disregarded the comments. After avoiding my question of what he ate for several minuets he finally showed me. It looked like a bunch of god-awful roots to myself, which would explain why fewer people had discovered this miracle of Mother Nature. So I picked one up and sniffed it, Derrick was too caught up in himself to notice. It smelled like dirt, no surprise for something that came out of the ground. I figured what do I have to lose a life where no matter who I help it s just not good enough for my wife, fearing the her wrath on my hand for being late I took a bite. Derrick stopped in mid sentence when he heard the crunch. He told me that I had made the biggest mistake of my life, as he was franticly scrambling to try and do something I felt a wave of complete relaxation hit me. Knowing the signs Derrick panicked and picked me up over his shoulder. My mind immediately wanted to protest this but my body told my mind what he could go stick it. Being so relaxed my arms hung and bounced like that of a rag doll as Derrick ran along side the road. Oh great! I thought to myself as I heard a car stop and my wife s voice come from it s interior. As Derrick quickly made up a story how he had meet me and then I offered to show him this spot in the woods, I supposedly offered him some of the mysterious root but he refused, then I must have ate too much or something. He told my wife to hurry and take me to the hospital while he went back to fetch his things. Now this proves that Derrick was not a stupid man, I knew he would never show a man missing for twenty years mysteriously appears in the involvement of a coma patient, he was leaving. Hearing the whole conversation but not being able to respond I wanted to laugh. As we arrived at the hospital I lost my sense of everything. Then I heard a male voice ask me if I could hear him. I could, and I could respond barley but I could respond! He asked me if I knew where I was, and after some searching I correctly responded. The next question seemed peculiar but he asked me if I knew what year it was I responded confidently. The looks on the doctors faces that surrounded my bed told me that something was drastically wrong. They went on to tell me that I had been involved in a serious vehicle accident as a result of my drunk driving, my wife and three-year-old daughter had been killed, and I had been in coma for twenty years. Wow twenty years just like Derrick said, but I never drank and drove. Then I noticed something weird, the doctor s id badge looked like any doctor s badge but the name: Dr. D. Knickerbocker. Realizing that I had just induced a twenty year long hell I thought to myself, oh my god what have I done?