The Classic Crusade of Corbin Cobbs

by Michael Ciardi

I materialized upon a beach that looked like a pasture of crushed limestone. Since I had already adapted to the uncultivated environments in which I happened upon, this particular backdrop rated as a near paradise by comparison. Towering palms trees swayed in temperate winds along the dunes, and the lull of seawater lapped on a shoreline with a synchronistic rhythm. My apparent solitude instilled no sense of alarm in me, for I already determined that almost everything in nature rarely panned out in a way it first appeared. As I padded along the beachfront, while being vigilant of the ocean’s ever-changing tides, I inspected my surroundings with a discriminating curiosity. I perceived nothing from my initial observations that hinted I had traversed upon anything more significant than a deserted island, but I also realized that my journey’s trek never ceased without some avenue of interaction.

  While white-capped breakers lathered the shore in foam that mimicked the clouds, I turned toward a jungle habitat opposite the sea. A scent of steaming flora mixed with the briny breezes inland. I made my trail beneath the shade cast over the sand from a stretch of palm trees. Farther along this jaunt, I found evidence verifying that I wasn’t the only pilgrim who made progress on this terrain. A few feet from where the sea’s froth glazed the sand like a film of taut cellophane, I detected the naked footprints of several human beings. The erratic placement of these markers suggested that a scuffle ensued on this spot not long before my arrival.

  I shouted above the roiling green waves, but only received traces of my own voice reverberating off the craggy cliffs situated beyond the forest’s perimeter. Rather than proceed with my search along the beach, I moved deeper into the island’s dense foliage. The territory was barely passable here. Tropical vegetation clogged the narrow wedges of earth at every bend between the trees. Since other men had undoubtedly surveyed this land before me, the dearth of footpaths seemed unusual. But despite this disadvantage, I trudged through the jungle as though I had mastered its foreignness with a sudden finesse for the unknown. Eventually, the underbrush thinned to present only a manageable impediment, and ultimately transformed into a partial clearing strewn with various sized boulders.

  I elected to rest within this scattering of rocks, playing favorites to one stone that was layered in a mossy carpet. From this vantage point I also noticed two different piles of bundled firewood. Evidently, someone had already planned to transport this material to another location. I then assumed that the source of such labor hadn’t strayed too far from my current position. An offensive odor overpowered the air, causing me to wince and screen my nose from this yet undetermined company. I likened the smell to a bushel of decaying fish, but also saltier. Whatever it was, I couldn’t imagine such an offensive stench emanating from another living creature, let alone a human being.

  My anticipation on this matter was allayed rather quickly. As the repellent aroma intensified, I retreated behind the rocks for camouflage. The thicket then crunched and parted with an approaching formation, and I soon discerned the shape of an altered beast that resembled a crossbreed of several species indigenous to this island. While inspecting its features, I became fairly certain that it was indeed an animal, but one that wasn’t entirely devoid of human characteristics. It walked on two legs rather than four, and had eyes disproportionate to that of a regular man. The majority of its scaly skin was finely coated with hair, but matted and dark in areas of its torso and pelvis as well; this detail seemed no more irregular than a male homo sapien.

  This uncomely mutation approached the gathered firewood carrying what looked like an armful of oblong-shaped acorns, but this variety was at least twice as large as those generated from the live oaks back in my homeland. Perhaps the creature’s strangest feature was a flowing burgundy cloak wrapped around its shoulders. The beast wore no other garments from its immense head down to its cloven feet. I presumed the monster had no knowledge of my presence behind the rocks, but it flared its nostrils at the air as if a fragrance more rancid than its own stench invaded its nostrils. A humbling notion then numbed me. What if my natural scent was just as disgusting to its olfactory senses as it was to mine?

  I deemed it pointless to conceal my intrusion a second longer. Despite its imposing size and frightful characteristics, I suspended my fear to face it as I had confronted other beasts in this journey. When I stood upright from behind the rocks, the creature released an odious snarl and nearly leapt from the coverage of its own cape. Within a few seconds, I realized that it was closer to my kind than I originally fathomed. This brute talked with a lucidity that belied its uncivilized mannerisms.

  “I prithee,” it shrieked, “art thou another sprite sent to prick and jab mine eynes? I shalt harness the pignuts and wood in haste. Tell thy meazel’d sorcerer so.”

  For such a massive figure, its voice projected a dread that contradicted any brutishness in its mannerisms. Since it perceived me as an entity unnatural to this island’s dwellers, and mentioned a necromancer as a source of its slavery, I presumed this ogre to be the infamous but potentially misunderstood Caliban.

  “There’s no reason to be startled,” I assured the beast. “Your master Prospero has not sent me here to monitor your progress.”

  Caliban angled his pig-like nose toward the sky again. It then lumbered toward me with an unsteady gait, as if it had consumed entirely too much alcohol. He managed to retract a protruding column of teeth before greeting me on very different terms. “Ay,” he slurred, “I knowst thy kind. Thou art kin to the moon. Didst thou bring celestial liquor as thy companions so oft glut? ’Tis a ripe scent I crave now.”

  The cursed animal’s observation wasn’t entirely baseless. Although I certainly had no connection to the shipwrecked men who planned to usurp the rightful Duke of Milan and violate his nubile daughter, Miranda, Caliban had a reason to label me as an interloper on his lush land.

  “Don’t worry,” I said, “Stephano and Trinculo aren’t my comrades, and unlike them, I bring no magic potion to alter your mood. Besides, it seems as though you’ve had enough of that draft already.”

  “Nay, stranger. But if thou be not sent to do what the paddock canst perform sans his magic books, wherefore have thou footed a path hither?”

  “I don’t yet know my reason for being here, Caliban,” I replied earnestly.

  “Via! If thou art not a sprite of the tyrant’s den, how doth ye recite mine name?”

  Obviously, I spoke prematurely, but remained resolute in my belief that I still had an advantage. “I must’ve heard you singing it while you were gathering the pignuts,” I offered.

  “Methinks not.”

  “Well, I had to overhear your name while you were making merry with the men who promised to avenge your servitude on this island.” My lie satisfied Caliban to a degree where he managed to deliver the relevant portion of his song to me.

  “Ban, Ban Ca-Caliban,” he chimed tunelessly. The hag seed howled like a feral dog, apparently amused with the syllables of a name given to him by his mother, the witch Sycorax. His distemper wasn’t entirely quelled, however, because I had not yet deciphered the benefit of my visitation for either of us. After sensing a disturbance in the trees overhead, I watched Caliban drop the acorns to the ground. He had learned to feel uneasy ever since Prospero branded him as a molester of his only daughter.

  “Dost thou brand me as a saucy woodcock?”

  “My opinion matters very little,” I answered Caliban objectively. “It’s how you view yourself that ultimately counts. Others will observe that truth as well.”

  “’Tis a slave’s existence. I live in sufferance. Prospero hath sent a she-fox to tempt mine loins. Being callow to the customs of foreigners, I sneeped and mealed with her as any who clasps a bona-roba might.”

  “As far as I know,” I indicated, “in every culture it’s never suitable to presume the intentions of a father’s young daughter. I’m afraid you’ve earned Prospero’s wrath and must now make amends.”

  “Zounds! ’Twas an err committed in luxury. Thou knowst
the honesty of her favors liest flat. I hast no country matters acknown, yet I gather pignuts and wood like a manikan. Prithee, couldst thee relay a more bemadding treatment?”

  “What punishment do you see fit for the attempted rape of a girl, Caliban?”

  “Mew! Thou apply delations to a word as strange to mine ears as thy presence and purpose hither. The fair imp is kept chaste in spite of a riggish heart.”

  “But does that mean your vile intentions should go unpunished?”

  “I might be a geck for storing capricious motives, but how many fetters couldst the sur-reined blacksmith forge if every fustian thought potch’d the violators into franked quarters?”

  “I suppose the civilized and uncivilized would share the same table at supper,” I said, but not without a wisp of shame.

  “Marry, so doth thou see perchance wherefore a monster may’st not truly be as such? I entreat thou, sir, couldst a creature as cowish as I be so kam-minded still?”

  I understood the Moon Calf and the consternation that directed him to these conclusions, but I refused to categorize him as a victim from what I gleaned of the circumstances. Although Prospero surely couldn’t be rated as an infallible sorcerer or father, I viewed his choice to protect his daughter’s chastity as admirable. In a sense, Caliban had invited strange beings into his world, where he taught them his habitat’s customs in exchange for their urbane knowledge. Yet somewhere the boundaries between the moral and immoral became as blurred and shifting as a tempest-tossed sea. Not surprisingly, I had plunged into the middle of this quarrel without an option to remain indifferent to the matter.

  Caliban then cast a wild gaze at the wind-rustled trees. “Anon,” he murmured in a trepid voice, “the scrolyle’d sorcerer shalt hast mine hide pricked by his missive fairy, Ariel. Lo, and hearken to the woods hurly. This forestry is sprited. ’Tis a sheep-biter enshield’d as a bugbear and sent as a spial to convoy mine apprehensions to his master’s ear. I prithee, don’t enclip its dribbling race sith ’tis apt to beteem thy parlous intent, if good deed be it so.”

  “The woods may in fact house secrets,” I told him, “but I have none to conceal from either you or Prospero. I suspect that such skeptical thoughts only contribute to this island’s mystery and misery.”

  “Ay, ’tis the proper acture to shun a cur, but thy mammering in mine haunt may’st be happily designed. From whither thou hast come I canst cipher. Yet methinks thee art soiled by some ropery.”

  “Trust me, Caliban, I haven’t traveled here to cause you any humiliation. My mission is more about finding my own way in this world. At the moment, however, I can’t even claim to know where I’ll be destined to go ten minutes from now.”

  Caliban chortled with wicked intonations at my pledge. He then bellowed, “O, gull, dost thou see’st me as a mome flecked with ignorance? I couldst hast thy blood-boltered brain on a dish. Be straight with me. Wherefore art thou on this isle hither?”

  “I’ve given you my answer already,” I declared. “I learn from those who share my circumstances in one form or another.”

  “Then thou art enslaven’d by a jack as well?”

  “Not in the same way you are. But I believe most people, whether good or bad, must answer to someone. And when we are alone, perhaps we listen to the one voice that never runs out of words.”

  Caliban then maneuvered his hoof-like paw to his head, gesturing that he had at least a rudimentary understanding of my purposes. Perhaps it was unfair for me to presume that this beast didn’t inherit the mental capacity to process his interior thoughts with any regularity.

  “Thou hast conjured spells sans magic,” said Caliban. He then crouched upon the rocks and cupped his bulging forehead between his paws. “Doth thou unclew th’ intendments of all thou jut upon?”

  “My business here isn’t to change anything that might yet occur,” I responded. “But I will say that within the next few hours you’ll need to make smart choices. Be careful in how you permit yourself to be led. Whether you see yourself as an ally or one afflicted, free or bounded, there will always be those who expect you to follow them. Pick your companions well, and if I may add, avoid the Moon Men’s liquor when it comes with a price that exceeds the depth of your own dignity. And please remember that the pathway to beautiful things isn’t as straight as it seems at first glance.”

  For now, Caliban appeared content with my advice. He then attempted to show his gratitude by offering to escort me around the island. I respectfully declined, since I had already sensed a level of confinement here. Before departing Caliban’s company, however, I assisted him in the task of collecting some acorns. He eventually directed me back to the beach, where I observed the Mediterranean’s tides churning with currents of miraculous splendor. For what it was now worth, the storm within me lashed against my brain with a cadence similar to the sea.

  While encapsulated in such moments, I questioned my ability to uphold the courage to exist in a world so brave and new, where friends and foes collided in a seamless dance for dominance. As it now stood, the division between all men and monsters wasn’t as clearly imprinted in the sands of our hours.

  Chapter 34

  10:47 A.M.