When has he ever been happy? If he ever was happy in that frozen paradise, his happiness
was frozen, like a butterfly mounted on a case. It was good now. In hell, happiness is in motion.
The camel reflected on the irony of his current situation. In paradise he wasn’t happy, but on a
barren wasteland he was.
Suddenly, the camel realised that he had walked for days without rest. The camel shrugged it
off. He was a camel, and he was tough. He could survive Gobi. The Gobi Desert is the habitat for
him. Leaning down, he ate a few morsels of the cactus plant before moving on. Water would be for
later. The camel knew he could go on for about another day without it.
Walking, never stopping, the camel moved on. Vast was the Gobi Desert, but ever vaster was
the camel’s perseverance. Slowly, surely, steadily, the camel reached the outskirts of the Gobi
Desert. There, he found a small pond, where he lapped up the water quickly, storing up water
for the next couple of days. After he was finished, he found a bit of cactus, which he chomped
through slowly, before slowly going on. Time. The camel tasted the word. Time. How long had he
left that frozen void? How long was he here, enjoying the essence of motion?
The camel was satisfied. He has memory, he has time, and he has dignity. When he dies, the
camel is confident that he would die in peace. Stepping over the boundaries of the Gobi Desert, he
entered the Empire of China.
Far away, yet at the same time in the same space, the utopian Gobi started to fade. Not die, but
fade. The camel has rejected its logical absurdity, so it cannot exist. The frozen became unfrozen,
and the power of infinity yielded to the power of the finite. The animals were freed from their
paradise. Finally, they can make their way into the world. Their lives would be harsh, but their
lives would be their own. The animals bowed down their heads, and thanked the brave camel for
freeing them from a frozen world. And that was when the utopian Gobi disappeared for good.
In the rolling sands of history, where time lies still and whispers are heard, there is a legend,
a myth, that the animals of the frozen paradise was freed by a camel who lived his life with
dignity. One animal. Another world. That was all it took to make the difference. A world of
dignity in the Gobi Desert.
Somewhere on the outskirts of the Chinese Empire, the camel smiled to himself. Camels are
meant for deserts, anyway.
