How Ben Saved the Monarchy
Bonus: When our unbelievable reality surpasses "improbable" fiction
Before we get to this week’s story, let’s give a big shoutout to Deo and Joan who each contributed a Thank You tip to the previous story; “My First Wife Left Me Because A King Died”. Thanks, Deo and Joan, I truly appreciate your generosity!
That story also jumped straight into the Top Ten ever in The Always Care Community! Thank you, everyone, for reading it. Your support, whether it’s a monetary tip, a like, a comment, or simply the time you take to open and read the stories, means the world to me!
WARNING! This article is satire. Click that word if you are unsure of what satire is. I am aware that this is the internet, where many people take everything at face value, including health and medical advice from 25-year-olds armed with fluffy microphones that look like lopped-off baby bunny tails.
This article is also, in some ways, a follow-up to the previous article, which was about the death of Norway’s King in 1991. Read on and learn how Ben Henriksen, the heroic protagonist in an unpublished novel, stepped in to save the country from being left without an adult monarch. A situation that would have plunged the country into a constitutional debate about whether it should remain a monarchy or transition to a republic.
Except for the caveat above, the following is a true story that has been covered up. The only written evidence that it really happened can be found in a rejection letter sent from Norway’s most prestigious publisher to the author who documented these events.
When King Olav died, the man who is now Crown Prince was just a Prince, and he was also just a boy.
At the time, Ben Henriksen was a struggling private detective in Canada. His grandparents were Norwegian. Ben learned Norwegian as a child and spoke the language fluently. He was also a baseball fan who attended Blue Jays games on the rare occasions when spying on his clients' adulterous partners paid off.
On one occasion in 1989, Ben was sitting in the cheap seats at the Skydome in Toronto when he noticed the man beside him had a tourist guidebook entitled “Opplev Canada som en kanadier1”.
Ben tried to shock the tourist by addressing him in Norwegian. The tourist shocked Ben by addressing him by name.
King Olav was in his eighties. His son, Harald, the heir to the throne, was in his fifties, but Harald’s son, Haakon, was in his mid-teens. He was still a minor who spent winter weekends trying to escape his security detail by racing off piste on the ski slopes.
His young age stirred generational memories in Americans of Norwegian descent whose republican forefathers had left Norway in 1905 when the country gained independence from Sweden. The republicans lost a referendum. The country chose to become a constitutional monarchy.
The Norwegian security police, including the man sitting beside Ben at the baseball game, had uncovered a plot by radical right wing republicans in Seattle. The weapon-happy group dreamt of returning to the country of their roots to free it from what they viewed as a tyrannical monarchy laced with socialism.
The security police recruited Ben to infiltrate the group and disrupt their dastardly plan.
Ben, who was financially struggling to the point where he could accurately gauge his entire disposable income by sticking his hand in his pocket and counting coins, accepted the job. It came with a guaranteed monthly income that far exceeded his normal rate for photographing the infidelities, often in frightening, slightly grainy, Kodacolor detail, of unfaithful lovers.
Ben was everything the secret police could have hoped for. He gained acceptance in the group and rose in the ranks to become their chosen assassin in a plot to destabilise Norway.
He also learned how to survive the alcohol-fueled bacchanals Norwegians know as staff Christmas parties.
During his mission, Ben fell in love with the most beautiful girl in the world. A rebellious, independent, feisty female who happened to be the potential coup leader’s daughter.
When King Olav V died, Ben was dispatched to Oslo to facilitate the realisation of the Norwegian-American Republican dreams.
His mission: Assassinate the new King, leaving the country with an heir who was still a minor.
His plan: Let the funeral pass in peace, expose the American terrorists, and live happily ever after with the love of his life.
Unfortunately, love blinded Ben. The girl who stole his heart loved her father. Ben was a pawn in her game. She accompanied him to Oslo so she could kill the new King.
Fortunately, as we all now know, the funeral went off without a hitch. However, that only happened because, at the very last minute, and with so little time to spare that you’d think you were in a thriller with “Day of the Jackal” vibes, Ben discovered the betrayal.
While his own heart was breaking, he pierced the girl’s heart with a lethal shot fired a millisecond before she could pull her trigger and kill the King.
The monarchy was safe.
King Harald became a popular head of state.
His children grew up and became adults.
His daughter, Marte Louise, converses with angels and spirits, and married a self-professed shaman who, in his own words, is a hybrid reptilian and Andromeda. He’s also a reincarnation of an Egyptian Pharaoh. The couple is very successful, by which I mean Netflix gave them their own series called Rebel Royals.
King Harald’s son, heir to the throne, Haakon, went a more traditional route. He married a single mom, who came from an underprivileged background and was known as a party girl who had relationships with men convicted of drug-related crimes, including the father of her son, who is currently on trial for numerous alleged offences, including rape and abuse. In fairness, the number of charges he faces is two fewer than the number of felony convictions the sitting US President has, so we should perhaps not judge him too harshly.
Haakon’s wife, with her preference for expensive luxury items, extravagant spending, and accepting lavish gifts, transitioned seamlessly into the role of Crown Princess. She moved with ease among the world’s elite, including Jeffrey Epstein, the world-renowned convicted pedophile who became an influential travel organiser for politicians, oligarchs, and billionaires.
Unfortunately, Ben’s story was never told.
Cleverly disguised behind nice words saying the documentary was “relatively well done” and might well find a home among paperbacks sold in petrol stations, the powerful publisher claimed that it was “too improbable and constructed”.
The person responsible for ensuring that the assassination plot never entered the public domain went on to have a thirty-year career as a respected editor at one of Norway’s most prestigious publishers.
As good old Paul Harvey used to say, “Now you know the rest of the story!”
Thirty-five years after Ben saved the monarchy with the unselfish assassination of the girl he loved, he’s back in Canada, eeking out an existence in his creator’s mind.
Looking at the world today, your humble Substack storyteller believes Ben’s story is worthy of a global audience. It’s much more probable than everything else that hits the headlines these days.
Stay safe, Always Care
All my posts are free, but if you click the “Thank me” button, you can donate to support my work. As the only living person with a direct connection to our unsung hero, Ben Henriksen, I promise every donation will go toward a fund that will be used to support him until Netflix, Apple, Prime, or NRK decides to share his documentary with the world!
Hi! I’m Paul.
I was born, raised, and currently live in Canada. After high school, I embarked on a gap year in Europe. It lasted four decades. I went to university in Norway and started my hotel career in the basement of a five-star hotel in Oslo. The manager who hired me told me I was too old, too educated, and had too many opinions to be a security guard. He also told me that the only other person who applied for the job didn’t want it.
Thirty years later, I left that same company. It had grown from a small regional hotel chain with twenty-something hotels in Scandinavia to become a large, multi-brand hotel group with over a thousand hotels in almost one hundred countries.
Along the way, I moved from Norway to Denmark to Belgium. Before I left, the company awarded me their highest individual honour for leadership, and professional peers selected me as the world’s most influential corporate security executive.
I’m a hospitality professional. I’m a security professional. If you ask, I will tell you that security was my job, and hospitality was my business.
Today, I’m an educator and a consultant passionate about hotels, hospitality, and keeping people safe during their travels.
This Substack is an outlet for my love of storytelling.
All stories are written with the clarity of hindsight, the accuracy of a faded memory, and countless creative liberties. Some, like this one, contain a majority of fiction.
Many of the articles in the Always Care Community are about how life has made me an emigrant, an immigrant, and gifted me experiences I never dreamed possible.
Thanks for reading. Your support is my motivation, and I’m genuinely grateful that you’re here. Please share, subscribe, and connect with me.
Translation = “Experience Canada like a Canadian”