In the spirit of Journalism, I wrote up a story that looks at my adventures from an entirely different angle... I hope you'll like it, but if you don't... Well, that's okay too. I'll still love you.
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Investigative Report, Submitted by Staff Reporter Harold Moffett to Editor-in-Chief, Erika Swenson of the Sunday Union Monitor, Concord, New Hampshire, 03301, USA
Title: Do You Know the Pirate Queen?
When Sheriff’s deputy, John Norwich (28) of Weare, NH, arrived at the house of one Benjamin Anders Cosgrove (26), he expected to find that Cosgrove’s hysterical neighbor had simply over-reacted. The Concord Sherriff’s office had received a 911 call from a Miss Angela James (56) of Fisk Road. She insisted that she was sure that her neighbor, Cosgrove must be dead, as it had been nearly two months since she had seen movement from his house.
To the deputy’s surprise, instead, he found a note, a last will and testament, and a riddle that leaves him with questions that he may never be able to answer to his satisfaction.
The home on 112 Fisk Road was purchased by Cosgrove in early 2003. Its appearance suggests that Cosgrove took genuine care of both his possessions and the house itself, but it does in fact appear to have been abandoned for some time. The lawn has not been mowed since the beginning of spring, and weeds are growing up in the driveway and between the paving stones of the front walkway. The door, while closed, was not locked. The kitchen table was set for one, and there were the mummified remains of a chicken dinner moldering away on it.
The television was still on, and Cosgrove’s laptop was off, but in sleep mode.
“It all looked as though the guy had just, I don’t know—gone out for a minute and planned to come right back… And then, just… didn’t. It still gives me a cold chill,” said a source close to the investigation. This statement was made after the source emerged from the house, which has been officially ruled not to be a crime scene.
“There doesn’t appear to have been any foul play,” said Sheriff Andrew Eastman, “and there is no proof that anything at all has happened to Mr. Cosgrove. He may simply have gone on vacation without telling anyone.”
According to his neighbor, Ms. James, Ben was a very personable man who lived alone and who had no close relatives. “He always seemed rather shy to me. But whenever I needed help with yard work, he would come over and help me. He was such a nice young man.”
Benjamin worked from a home office as an online writing tutor for a large company based in Florida, and had no pets, friends, or discernable hobbies other than watching television on his flat screen(mostly sci-fi), and playing Mafia Wars and Farmville on Facebook.
To say that his disappearance is strange is simply stating the obvious, but even the authorities have not been able to come up with a plausible explanation of where Cosgrove went.
According to another source, when Deputy Norwich entered the house, he could hear the television, and though the house should have smelled of mildew and rancid food, he smelled nothing except a cool breeze, marked by a tang of salt in the air.
“He swore to me that for a second he felt like he had stepped out of Concord, and onto the Boardwalk of Hampton Beach.”
It should be noted that Concord is approximately 55 miles inland from the Atlantic Ocean.
Deputy Norwich declined to comment on the matter, stating that the investigation had been officially closed.
It is a fact that the deputy never reported this mysterious breeze in his write up of the incident at the house, merely telling friends and family.
Still, all questions regarding the competence of our sheriff’s office aside, the riddle remains.
The real question is… Who is this mysterious Pirate Queen?
And what really happened to Benjamin Anders Cosgrove?
We may never know.
*The Text of Benjamin Anders Cosgrove’s final communication is included below, with no omissions, revisions, or additions of any kind. You must draw your own conclusions from its contents.
Harold Moffett
Staff Reporter
The Daily Union Leader –
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June 14, 2010
From “Brisket” Cosgrove, to Whom it May Concern:
By the time anyone reads this letter, I will be long gone, having sailed off into the sunset to face whatever comes next. Please don’t worry about me; I look forward to this adventure in a way that I have never looked forward to anything else in my life. You see, my story begins (and ultimately ends) like this:
Once upon a time, a little over two weeks ago now, my car broke down in the middle of nowhere, and I was left stranded by the side of the road with 26 dollars in my pocket, no cell service, and a bad case of Poison Oak. One of my Nikes was only hanging on by sheer willpower. I was dressed in gym shorts and a ripped Bruins t-shirt, and I smelled like bug spray, old sweat, and dead leaves.
As you can probably gather from the above, it was not the conclusion of my best day ever.
After walking along the side of a state road in serious need of repair for a few hours, I at last reached a watering hole.
Seriously, it was a literal watering hole, or to be more specific, it was a well. Located in the exact center of a large quadrangle, it was bordered on each side by an old building. On the northern side was an ancient town hall; to the south was a small protestant church. To the east and west were houses that had reached such an extreme state of disrepair that they were barely identifiable as dwellings any longer. Each seemed to be leering at me, like the skulls of mummies, only instead of missing eyes, teeth and noses, they had lost their shingles, windows and doors. Just outside the square was a large green sign, welcoming me to “Scenic and historic Smallborotonville!” However, the condition of the sign made its very presence both disturbing and menacing.
At some point in the distant past, the sign had doubtless been equally as scenic as the town, but now the paint was cracked, chipped, and faded, and the wood from which it was made had been so chewed up by both insects and the weather, that I doubt if it would have continued to stand without the enormous pines growing up around it sheltering it from the breeze. In fact, those same sheltering trees crowded so closely around the sign that it was almost invisible from the road leading to the square.
Suffice to say, I didn’t feel that I had been particularly welcomed to the town. This forbidding place was more like a hidden castle in an enchanted forest, or a dead city in the heart of a jungle.
My hands actually started to sweat a little. Honestly, I wasn’t all that used to adventure. Actually, that’s a lie… I had never been on an adventure in my life, unless you counted getting lost in my back yard once when I was ten. Then, I cried like a baby. And now, here I was, stranded in the middle of nowhere, with no prospects, and apparently, no hope of assistance from any other human beings; I felt an unwilling lump rise in my throat, and I pushed it down as hard as I could.
How was this possible? I couldn’t be more than 10 or 20 miles from I-93 for crying out loud!
Bottom line? I had absolutely no idea where I was, how I had gotten there, or how the hell I would ever get home again. Somewhere along my staggering journey down the side of the road, I had actually begun to wonder if I might die before I saw anything but softwood forests, swamps, enchantingly picturesque abandoned farmhouses, and crumbling stone walls.
Even the center of town appeared to be deserted. In fact, it appeared as though no one had lived in this town since Abraham Lincoln was in middle-school.
Dejected, I approached the well, and pumped the handle several times. Luckily, this at least seemed operational. I suppose you might think that it was foolish of me to simply assume that the water was safe to drink. I mean, who knows what carcasses might have ended up down there in a spring flood or something, but by that time, I didn’t care if there was strychnine and a dead ‘possum in that well. It was wet and cool, and I intended to consume it and bathe my hot face and hands in it.
The water was as refreshing as possible under the circumstances, and I sat down in the grass of the town common in order to contemplate my immediate future.
This depressed me so much, that by the time I noticed approaching footsteps, I had simply given up and lain down on the grass like a deflated balloon. I even began to wonder if I wasn’t in a coma in a hospital somewhere… Did this place even exist? Did I exist?
And then I had the scariest thought ever… Perhaps I had died and gone to… New England?
Better than hell I supposed, though not by much.
And then a shadow landed on me. I looked up in shock, with a gasp of indrawn breath, and an intense full-body shudder. I rolled nimbly to my feet and said, “Oh my god! I thought I was never going to set eyes on another human being as long as I lived!”
Once I stood, I got my first really close look at a local.
To be honest, she wasn’t all that impressive, but I had no burning desire to complain, given that she was the first potential assistance I had seen in what felt like forever.
She was short and sturdily built, with brown hair and merry blue eyes ringed with nearly black pigment toward the outer edge of the irises. Her face was plain, but cheerful, with two small dimples and dark brows and lashes.
On a second perusal she began to really come into focus for me. She was statuesque, and wore black boots with spiky heels, which had sunk just a bit into the turf of the quadrangle. She wore black pants, and a black shirt made of some velvety material that flowed loosely. Her hair rioted in total excess about her round face. She seemed harmless… but also, oddly intimidating. There was something about the aura of confidence that she gave off that freaked me out a little.
She wore no adornments that I could see, save a delicate chain of white gold that held a single diamond, and a tiny charm of silver that was etched with a tiny heart. When she offered me her hand to shake, her shirt opened just a bit at the collar, and I could see the extreme edge of some tattoo on her chest above her right breast. As her body turned I saw that she carried on her hip, a scabbard, currently empty, and a holster in which she kept, not a pistol, but rather a … Multi-tool.
This was already the single strangest encounter I had ever had with anyone, not that I’d had many encounters, as a life-long geek and introvert, I wasn’t exactly a social butterfly, and quite frankly, women as a species mystified me more than theoretical math.
I was shaking hands with an actual pirate, who must have some affiliation with Home Depot (considering the multi-tool anyway). Or, rather, I was shaking hands with a strange little woman who was dressed somewhat like a pirate.
This whole day had gone from weird to completely surreal with one handshake.
As we shook, she introduced herself. “Hi there, stranger. I’m called Virginia by those who know my family, Your Majesty by those who my reputation, and Verge by a select few. You look a bit—“
She was too polite to continue, and trailed off, leaving me holding the conversational reigns. It took me a second, but I climbed into the driver’s seat and took my turn at word craft.
I explained both who I was, and how I had arrived in Smallborotonville. Her eyes widened, and she listened to my tale with no hint of skepticism or disbelief whatsoever. When I finished, she looked down at her feet, took a deep breath, and said,
“You better come with me. I’ll help you get back home safely.”
And so she eventually did… Though the story is a long one, full of adventure, fantasy, and both people and creatures that even you would find difficult, if not impossible to believe.
In one day I saw and did things that I had previously thought impossible.
I battled a band of ninjas while a ship’s deck pitched beneath me; I ran through a dark Saltmine as though my life depended on it (which it did); I fought back a beast that took on a human shape made entirely of the muck from the bottom of a small pond.
Somehow, without even knowing it, I had fallen down some sort of rabbit hole in reality as a result of faulty wiring in my car.
It was the most amazing experience of my life, and at the end of the day, I wiped the blood off my cutlass, bowed low before the Queen, and thanked her for saving me from a fate worse than death…
Boredom.
Unfortunately, after returning me to my car approximately 12 hours later, Verge left me there alone, disappearing back into the woods with only a slight jingle of silver buckles. When I got in, my car started with absolutely no hint of its previous condition. Somewhat dazed, I drove back to my silent and empty house just outside of Concord. Fisk road had never seemed so safe and predictable as it did that night.
But I did not forget my adventure, or the charming and (to those who don’t know her well) mostly inconspicuous Pirate Queen with whom I had shared that adventure.
About 3 days later, when I could no longer stop thinking about it, I headed back in the direction of Smallborotonville, in order to see if I could replicate my amazing adventure again. I received a painful blow, as though disappointment were actually a physical weight on my shoulders.
The road I had been stranded on was gone. The entire turn-off had vanished as though it had never existed. Route 149 met met Route 77 innocently enough, but at the crossroads were only three possible choices… The fourth was simply not there.
I pulled over to the side of the road. The tightness in my chest was distinctly un-manly, or so my esteemed father would probably have said… but the thought that perhaps I had just dreamed up the queen’s existence was horribly depressing and I just didn’t care. I punched the steering wheel with both fists and swore obscenities I had never used before in my life. Other than that, there was no sound or movement anywhere around me. I sat in my still and by now hot car for over twenty minutes.
When I had finally collected myself, I restarted my car and began a u-turn that would return me to face my old life, turning my back on my one chance at adventure.
And then I saw it.
There was a brief flash of movement in the trees, and for the barest hint of an instant I saw what looked like a genuine pirate ship, moving silently and totally improbably through the woods, as though sailing through an ocean of leaves and branches.
On the deck of that sloop, there stood the Queen. As the ship rushed past and before it vanished back into the depths of the forest, she tossed something onto the ground beside my car.
When I had recovered myself, I opened the door to see what she had left behind… It was a clear glass bottle, of a kind that hasn’t been made in years, and contained within was a rolled up piece of paper.
I had to use a pen in order to remove the cork, and draw the paper clumsily out through the top. When I read the contents, I smiled, and I doubt that I have done much of anything else since, except perhaps to re-read the letter, and prepare for the journey to come.
This is what the note said:
To My Dear Friend,
Though we have only known each other a short time, I find that I am anxious to have you join with me to fight the forces of evil, which include but are not limited to: standardized testing, ninjas, and other assorted villains.
I think that you would be a valuable ally and friend.
If you would join my crew and I on our quest, simply return to this place during the next full moon. I make this offer knowing full well that you may reject it and me with it.
I will await you there, my friend.
If you do have second thoughts, do not be sad, instead simply remember me fondly, as your affectionate friend and servant,
The Pirate Queen, Virginia of the Salt Mines, Upon the hour of Twilight
I don’t remember the drive home, but I do know that all I thought about was going on line to find out the date of the next full moon. When I discovered that it was still two weeks away, I sobered a bit.
But since that day, I have thought about little else.
Tonight is the full moon, and the Unvanquished will be waiting, with the Queen and her crew on board.
Good bye to whoever may read these lines. I fondly hope that you are able to one day join the Queen on her adventures as well… They might just change your life.
That’s what they did for me.
Signed,
Benjamin “Brisket” Anders Cosgrove
Upon the dawn of Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Attachment: Last Will and Testament
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Writer’s Final Note:
Inasmuch as Benjamin really had very little to leave, his possessions themselves are of little note. However, he did dedicate that all his goods as were found to have merit should be left entirely to fund the higher education of worthy and needy students, and thanks to the value of the house he owned, several potential students may find themselves very fortunate indeed, once seven years have passed and he may legally be declared to be deceased.
–Harold Moffett, Staff Reporter, The Daily Union Monitor
Article Submitted on June 14, 2010
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Editor’s Response: Harold, most of the information in this piece can hardly be credited or cited, much less believed. I am, on a personal note, disappointed that with all of your training you would even attempt to pass off such drivel as “news” to the citizens who read our paper.
Consider yourself on warning, and stick to the Korner Cupboard and captioning photos taken for real articles, since you are clearly incapable of writing an investigative article effectively.
–Editor-in-Chief, Erika Swenson, The Daily Union Monitor
Article Summarily Rejected, June 14, 2010
1 comment:
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