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The Wandering Camel



I am a Camel. I am old…
People call me the ship of the desert.
A ship is supposed to sail on water.
But instead, I sail on dry sand, and see no water in sight.

I have been banished here by everyone I ever cared for.
What a cruel thing to do, after carrying them all for miles without rest…
What is my crime?
What have I done to deserve this?

They say I am incapable of understanding.
They say I do not see them.
But they do not know themselves as I do.
I always see through their clay faces…

What is my sin?
They say I am incapable of being truly useful.
All the while, I was being used by them—
To carry their burdens for miles on my back,
Without having a sip of water…

I lived as far away as I could from the life I craved for all of them…
I gave up my strength to harbour the weakness of all these other ungrateful camels…

Maybe it is my impenetrable thick fur, as they say…
Maybe it is my inability for “vulnerability,”
My crippling fear of letting anything at all into my belly, as they say…

I sure conceived my children out of this same belly.
But I could not allow them to peep inside it.
And so, I did all that I could,
And kept them away from the burden of my shame.

I lied about its true nature.
I filled their tiny little heads with grotesque images of reality,
And their innocent hearts with confusion.

I wrote their futures with meticulous detail before they could walk.
But they betrayed me by choosing on their own…

I thought I could control them—
Keep them on my leash.
I was blinded by my own cleverness…

Little did I know about their real nature.
Little did I know that they had agency—
Something that I never had, ever…
I never knew they would banish me back into this barren land.

Now I am waiting for my inevitable death.
I am counting my days, to leave this barren body behind.
I died a long time ago,
And I am not the one to blame for that.

It started with my parents,
Then the fellow camels I met on my journey, then my husband,
Then my children, and finally—
This hollow space…
A place without water.
A place with no bounds.
Where I can be anyone else but myself.

I am the ship of this desert,
Now a barren land, devoid of my kind.
I need some water to fill my empty belly.
But I sail on the sands of borrowed time…

(The story of a mirror that turned away from itself)


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