Member-only story
Midday at the Oasis
You put your camels to bed
The bus bumped hard over a pothole, and I woke. It was as if someone had grabbed me by both shoulders and shaken me from a dead sleep. My head spun with the half-images of unfinished dreams mixed. Unwashed bodies pressed too close together filled my nose. The vehicle rolled to a stop at a wide place in the road. I peered out the smudged window and gasped.
A little girl leaned against the side of a legless camel. Its belly rested in the dust, its knobby stumps stuck straight out in front and behind it. Some ax-wielding maniac must have hacked off its legs at the joints, I thought. Worse, the poor beast was still alive! Its sides heaved in and out, the bundles of carpets and goods strapped to it, moving with each breath. Nearby, three other camels lay legless in the dust. A fourth stood nearby, placidly chewing its cud.
The little girl stared up at me with cat-green eyes. She was oddly undisturbed by the butchery. Probably still in shock, I figured. The scene was horrific.
“Look! Oh God!” I said and shook my boyfriend’s shoulder. He remained asleep. But an Englishman sitting across the aisle heard the alarm in my voice and rose to see what was going on. He grasped the metal bar on the back of our seat and leaned over to look out the bus window.
