When I was on a trip to Morocco a couple years back, I was in the middle of the Sahara Desert at this charming little hostel. As night fell, there were maybe 20 of us sitting at a big table outside. There was a fire, some guys were playing drums, and people were eating, drinking, and dancing. As the stars came out, they were more brilliant than I've ever seen, and I'm a sucker for that kind of stuff. My new-found friends Tom and Cecilia and a horde of girls decided to break away from the group and walk into the dunes to get the full effect. A few Moroccan guys who worked at the hostel took us so we wouldn't meet our demise to a scorpion or whatever else could have been lurking in the sand.
We all sat with some food and booze in the middle of our circle, and the guys asked if we ever heard the Story of the Black Camel. Sounds cool, right? If you're me yeah it does. If you're a normal thinking person, you might say to yourself, "I don't think camels come in black". And you would be right in saying that. But that's for later.
So one of their own brought me and Tom out further to find this camel while the girls stayed back in the safe and trustworthy hands of the 2 other hostel workers (5 girls, 2 guys so we felt alright with it). We walked and stumbled barefoot through the still-warm sand while the breeze was getting progressively cooler and night was tightening its grip on us. At each dune, our guide told us the black camel should be just on the other side. We kept climbing the dunes to no avail. He noticed our spirits fading and suggested turning back, but I was determined to lay my eyes on this magnificent creature - I had never seen a camel before, let alone a BLACK one. Finally our guide stopped us and we sat for a rest. He started with little tid bits about this black camel - people are constantly searching for this mystical thing that they really know nothing about. We are just like the others, exhausting ourselves, risking getting lost in the desert, leaving our friends behind, just to see this camel. And for what? He got up and, in his cool Moroccan saunter, edged up to the top of the dune. He reached up and pointed, "my friends, here's what you've been searching for".
I'm sure you can figure how this ends. I was still drinking the kool-aid.
We looked to where he pointed and saw nothing. "Dude, you're killing me".
"No, it's there. Look. It's what you have come to see," he persisted, as big grin crept across his face.
Nothing. We came to see nothing. He couldn't stop laughing. "How stupid are you to think you'd find a black camel?! At night, a black camel at night, in the dunes??!" Listen, I don't know anything about the habits of camels - black or otherwise. He was so elated that he had dragged us out there, reinforcing the philosophical point he was trying to make with his little story.
Yeah yeah yeah, so we're all searching for something and once (or if) we find it, it's not going to be what we expected. Like a night sky, I am a sucker for these kind of allegories too. The Alchemist - I can't get enough. It's a book, if you haven't heard of it.. It's a mystical tale of fate, omens, journeys and more. We didn't get led into the desert chilling with Socrates though. Moroccans might possibly make the best wingmen besides the valiant soldiers on Jersey Shore (referring to Pauly D's "jump on the grenade" scenario) and this guy dragged us away so that his friends could talk to our girl friends.
So now I continue to stumble through my 22 year old life, mindful of the tale of the black camel, hoping that my pursuits turn out to be truly valuable. When you boil down to the truly important things, though, life gets pretty simple.
23 days til I'm out. 22 days til I'm 23. Nice. Just wanted to get an intro going so I can start getting all of you signed in!
Zach, what a beautiful story! And I thought Nick was the only writer in our family. love, mom
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