There's Something about Camels

I created the “Quirky Stories Involving Animals” category because of a story about a goat (Midnight’s Tale) and a story about a Unicorn (Problems With a Girl & a Unicorn, not yet posted here).

It turns out, though, that so far, the majority of the stories involve camels. In When a Camel Breaks Your Heart, the camel stands in for the difficulty communicating across different cultures. In Pleased to Be Otherwise, camels stand in for the the disconnect between the help that is offered and the help that is needed. And there is a camel in Midnight’s Tale: Harlan, a character whose cynicism and dissatisfaction with what life has to offer is a counterbalance to the optimism of the main character.

In all of these stories, the camels also provide a fair amount of the comedy. It makes me wonder: what is it about camels? Is it that they just look ridiculous? But plenty of animals look ridiculous. Have you ever really looked at a tapir, for instance? Perhaps it is that camels are familiar and yet exotic to most Western readers. In the case of Midnight’s Tale, it could very well be that the author chose to match the personality of the character with the infamous ill-tempered camel. Whatever the reason, I fully expect to find more quirky stories involving camels. They seem to be a good match.