#100 Black Camel

by Stephen Parrish, Guest Writer

I woke to my grandfather’s cane rapping feverishly on the wall. I bounded down the stairs and found him sitting upright in his bed, staring wide-eyed at imaginary ghosts fleeing the dawn.

“A black camel,” he said, pointing a bony finger at the window.

His words chilled me; the black camel was an ancient symbol of death. I followed his terrified gaze to the window, but the only intruder there was the meager light offered grudgingly by a drowsy morning sun.

“Do you need a drink?” I asked. “Are your covers falling off?”

“Some of the dead,” he whispered, “have yet to die.”

His eyes softened as he came fully awake and whatever was pursuing him quit the chase. I eased him back on his pillow and tucked him in; he held his blanket tightly under his chin to shield himself from last-minute skirmishes. I sat with him until his eyelids drooped and his breathing steadied. Then I returned upstairs to my room.

There, exposed by the dawn, bathed in a kaleidoscope of refracted light, the black camel was waiting for me. Waiting with the patience of time that moves in a circle, that rotates with the blinding speed and yet exasperating slowness of a biding and obdurate galaxy. Always sure to come around again, to make up for missed opportunities, for past failures. To travel through space as easily as a ray of light traverses the colors of the spectrum.

“My grandfather,” I said.

“No,” came the reply. “You.”