Camels

Many strange and eclectic creatures bear the burden of being bizarre as they crawl over the earth. The platypus bears that weight severely as it looks like a taxidermist did his job drunk while salvaging some duck remains and beaver remains. The giraffe is not necessarily ironic in its height, because it really does need said height to reach the high leaves, but it is profoundly awkward in its height, especially when needing a low drink. The ostrich is unsettling in its appearance at best and flummoxing at worst - perhaps so much that it appears to be baffled by its own existence and seeks to bury its head in the ground when that feeling is just too overwhelming at times. However, there’s no creature quite as bizarre as the camel. Sure, it looks like a llama fused with a horse with inversely bowed legs and a radical hump - or two (how many did Sally have?) - plopped on its back. But that’s just the point. It’s almost right, but completely wrong. It’s uncanny! It looks like it shouldn’t exist…but it, indeed, it does. I, for one, am quite glad. Who knows how different history would be without the camel, that loadbearing brood of the sands of the Near East. What war supplies may have been brought, or not, without? What caravans and travelers would have perished without the weights they carried? You creature of arid land, with your double eyelids, one of which is translucent enough to see through and strong enough to keep the sand out so that you can travel on when others can amidst the desert’s fury. You desert crawler with your cisterns deep in your bowels so that when wells are dry your tongue isn’t parched. Why were you fashioned? Though I can’t be sure, I think it was to stop wars, to stand with the weight no other could, and to stoop beside a king when he was born, showing that beauty comes in the most unlikely places and wars stop when you come bearing your gifts!