Member-only story
Rip Van Winkle — Chapter 6 Rip’s Reckoning
By Kevin J. W. Driscoll © 2026
For the first time since waking, Rip Van Winkle felt truly alone. Not lonely — that was a feeling he’d known well enough in his old life — but unmoored, as though the world had slipped its anchor and drifted somewhere he couldn’t follow. He wandered through Fallingbrook like a ghost haunting a place that no longer remembered his name.
Children pointed at him with wide eyes. Adults whispered behind hands. A few stared openly, trying to reconcile the legend with the man standing before them.
Rip tried to speak with them, to explain, to understand, but every conversation felt like stepping into a river that had changed its course. People listened politely, even kindly, but their eyes held no recognition. He was a stranger wearing the face of a myth.
He found himself drawn to the river — the one that had shifted its bend while he slept. He stood at the bank, watching the water rush past. It moved faster now, more confidently, as if time itself had grown impatient. Rip dipped his hand into the current. It was cold, sharp, alive.
“Everything’s changed,” he murmured. “And I stayed the same.”
Wolf nudged his leg, offering the simple comfort only a dog can give. Rip scratched behind his ears, grateful for at least one constant.
