Ahmed's Crazy Camel

           Ahmed sat on a rock in front of his house looking out at the vast Arabian Desert. He held a grayish fruit in his hands.   His thoughts were on his family’s camel and the great accident that had occurred over a month ago.  Men from an oil company had come out to their property with this huge digging machine.  As they were working, the machine had swung around and hit their camel in the head.   From that point, he started making a sound that was closer to a cow’s moo than a camel’s grunt, but otherwise seemed normal.

Most of Ahmed’s family didn’t really care how the camel acted as long as he still took Father, who was a spice merchant, out to the nomads to sell spices.  They did not even have a name for the camel.  They simply called him, Camel. 

For some reason, Ahmed really liked this camel.  Of course, the camel acted like a normal camel.  He grunted at everyone, spat at Ahmed’s father every time he tried to load him, and was all around grumpy like every other camel, but not around Ahmed.  Around Ahmed the camel was somewhat affectionate for a camel.  Ahmed and this camel had an understanding and mutual respect for one another.  It made Ahmed extremely sad that this had happened to his friend, and he wanted to try to find a way to make him better.

Earlier that day, Ahmed had talked to this old fortuneteller.  She had sold him the strange grayish fruit he now held in his hands.  She had told him that if he would feed the camel the fruit, it would bring the camel back to his senses.  Ahmed was waiting for his father to return from a trip to the nomad tribes so that he could give the fruit to his friend, Camel.  He was hoping with all his might that the old fortuneteller had not lied to him and took his money.

Before long, Ahmed saw a familiar swaying object coming into sight.  His father and Camel were back.  After Father unloaded his bundles of spices, Ahmed took the camel to water and feed him.  He let Camel get his fill of water before he placed the strange fruit in front of him.

“Here, boy,” said Ahmed, “eat this.  It should make you feel better.”

The camel bent down and smelled the strange fruit.  Then he took a bite and immediately spit the fruit everywhere.  He started making a weird honking sound and scraped his mouth against the ground.  Ahmed tried to get close to the camel to calm him down, but it was no use.  The camel was spitting, honking, and running around frantically.  Finally, Ahmed sat down on a rock and waited for the camel to calm himself down.  It took nearly 15 minutes.  When the camel stopped all the commotion, Ahmed looked at the camel hopefully to see if all the raucous had been worth it.  The camel gave Ahmed a mournful look and mooed.

Ahmed was devastated.  It hadn’t worked.  Camel was still mooing.  That fortuneteller had scammed him.  Ahmed’s anger rose within him.  He got up from the rock and kicked a stone out into the desert.  Then Camel came up to Ahmed and started gently chewing on his hair.  Ahmed turned around and stroked the camel’s neck.  He wanted to cry.

“I’m sorry I made you eat that awful fruit,” Ahmed said to Camel.  “I just wanted you to be normal again.”

Camel bent down, snatched a bit of grass, and began to chew slowly.  Ahmed stood back and looked at Camel’s sad, mournful eyes.  He decided that it didn’t matter that Camel mooed instead of grunting like other camels.  Camel was his friend, and they still had their understanding and respect for one another.

Ahmed led Camel into the stable and made sure he had clean hay.  Then he put him up for the night.  As Ahmed walked into the house, he realized that he wasn't as sad about Camel anymore.  He was pretty sure that Camel was going to be just fine.