Grandpa Dean's Wishing Well Stories

"The Albino Wish-Granting Camel"

Yes, his name is Clark.

In the Arabian Desert, right in the middle where a large battle raged, one of the soldiers fighting for the French was about to leave without permission. Pierre didn’t have a last name. He didn’t have a real reason to be in hot foreign sand fighting a war he didn’t start. He was only there because of a choice made after being arrested for pick pocketing homeless people and terrorizing baby rabbits in a public park.

A judge had ordered him either to join the French Foreign Legion to die in glory, or to rot in prison and die alone, insane and stinky. Pierre didn’t think he’d enjoy prison, so he enlisted with the Legion and went off to fight in one of their famous desert wars.

As it often happens in such battles, foreign or not, there are explosions and gunfire and loud rat-at-tat-tatting. When he got down there, most of the fighting happened near Pierre, who was thinking about how nice a cool covered jail cell would be. A large sandstorm rose from the desert floor and covered the battlefield. Hard winds blew sand into clouds so dense, that they prevented both armies from fighting. Pierre couldn’t see or hear much warring, but thinking that it was his chance to escape, he left under cover of the storm. He eventually found himself in a nowhere part of the desert surrounded by large dunes.

Pierre got very, and most definitely very, lost.

As the sun was going down on that first day, he was thankful that it would be cooler. Now that he was away from war and sandstorms, he realized he was thirsty. He reached for his canteen, but its side had a gaping bullet hole and his water was gone. He walked for an hour, not really knowing where he’d end up, until he collapsed in the sand.

Pierre woke the next morning to a bright sun high and hot overhead. He forced himself to begin his westward walk, and for many hours, he trekked between the dunes searching for a shady outcrop to sleep under. He found none and got burned, becoming red and swollen with the heat as he trudged until he couldn’t move again.

By the end of that second day, Pierre stood—wobbling upright, staring at the horizon, waiting for the sun to sink. With dried mouth and cracked lips, sunburned and blistering skin, dehydrated and dizzy-tired, he stared blankly. Then he saw it. There, just there, suddenly moving across the distant dunes. There, moving over the sand peaks was what looked like a camel—was it a camel? He thought that it was, and one that was less than a mile off.

Mirage or not, Pierre would crawl to reach that slow, humpy, milky-looking thing.
Pierre made his legs move until the vision became a real camel just ahead. He realized just how white it was. Humps and hooves, two pink eyes and lips, and beneath all that pale fur was baby-pink fish-belly skin. It was an albino camel!

When it stopped for a breather, punchy Pierre cracked open his closed-up throat to ask if it would stay put. His voice was croaky and dried and froggy. “S’il vous plait, Monsieur Chameau Blanc, don’t move.”

The camel turned his head. “The name’s Clark, not monsieur,” he said. “I don’t speak French; I’m not going anywhere because I was looking for you, Peter.”

“Pierre, Chameau Blanc.”

“As I said, Frenchy Peter, I don’t speak French.”

Pierre, moving closer to the camel, wondered if he was hallucinating. “Did you just tell me that your name was Clark?” he asked in another low croak.

“Yep, I sure did, Petey-Weesto,” said the camel.

Yes, his name was Clark.

“I am hallucinating, no?”

“No,” said Clark, “but you also might be. It is the desert, you are thirsty, and most camels don’t speak.”

“What are you doing here?”

Clark replied, “The desert’s my home until I’ve settled an old debt by helping weary, lost travelers like you—everyone I help is a help to my debtor.”

Thinking that he wasn’t long for this world (he was talking to an albino camel in the middle of the desert, you know), Pierre asked, “How can you help me?”

“I’ve been given the power to grant one wish to any wanderer I find,” said the camel. “Here you are and so there you go, Pete-Pete. One wish—now, you get going.”

He was probably dying from the exposure, Pierre thought to himself, but he decided that it didn’t hurt to wish for something as long as he didn’t start eating the hot sand. Wishing wouldn’t be a bad way to die, but there was only one thing on his mind…water, and he wanted tons of it. Even as he imagined himself swimming in rivers of ice cold mountain water, sunstroke or not, he began to wonder why his brain suddenly dreamed-up this albino wish-granting camel.

Through parched lips, Pierre croaked, “Clark, I wish for all the water that I can hold in my belly and more for breakfast. Water, water, water for me. I thirst.”

Clark sarcastically said, “Your wish is my command, Pee-Air.”

When nothing happened, Pierre closed his eyes, then fell to his knees and laughed his croaky chuckles. The bright sun broiled now, and he didn’t know how long he knelt in that hot sand. When he finally opened his eyes, a small cactus had grown at his knees. There were no prickles on its fat base, so he pulled it free with his hands and squeezed juice into his mouth, which made him sleepy and then punchy, until he finally started to hallucinate for real.

Pierre collapsed to the sand. He thought he’d never wake again, but he was very grateful for the pile of talking furry biscuits giggling next to him and keeping him company. His thirst was quenched, and the trombones were nice as he drifted off. Yes, he was grateful, but as soon as he sank into the pink farming cloud pillow, a terrible noise and smell jarred him from deep sleep. Beneath a flick-tocking tail, Pierre opened his eyes to see the pasty low-hanging ceiling of Clark’s fleshy undercarriage.

He dragged himself from under the gamey-smell, bracing for a blast of camel pooting when the much cooler sun prepared to set.

“You didn’t grant my entire wish,” he said, “but I appreciate the shade.”

“You’re welcome,” said Clark, “but now I’m sunburned, which proves that no good deed goes unpunished. And I’ve not granted the wish—follow me.” The two walked toward the sunset side-by-side and stopped at the foot of a large sand dune an hour later. Clark nudged Pierre. “Climb up so you can see the other side.”

“It’s more sand—est juste une hallucination, chameau.”

Bored and annoyed, Clark said, “Just climb, Stinky Pete.”

Pierre threw up his hands, and when he reached the top, he saw sprawling grass lawns, groves of palm trees, and two deep wells for drawing water. Turning to offer thanks, he shook his head and whispered something about seeing things. Clark, the albino wish-granting camel, was gone. Pierre rolled down the slope toward the closest well, drew up the water and drank until his belly was full. As he sat on the stone edge, he took in the beauty of the oasis.

It was then that a nomad trader named Kalid drew water for his animals, and when he saw the sunburned, haggard soldier, he asked, “How long have you wandered the desert, my friend? You need medicine, and food, and rest.”

Thinking, Pierre asked, “When did the great desert battle end?”

Setting aside the bucket, Kalid replied, “What desert battle?”

“The one in the Arabian Desert three or four days ago.”

Kalid thought for a moment and said, “Ah, yes, the French legion war fought there—the first battle ended when the rolling winds buried both sides under sand. It’s said there were no survivors, but that was years ago, when I was a boy.”

“No,” said Pierre, “after the sandstorm, I followed an albino wishing camel to this oasis, but it was days past, not years.”

Kalid smiled. “Clark is my American cousin, who was transformed by a dune witch after he failed to repay money she’d loaned him. He was never good with money, so he probably went back in time when you found him. Did you wish for water?”

Pierre said, “Yes—how did you know? Back in time?”

“Because you are dying, my friend,” he said. “Your body is lying unconscious in the hot desert sand, and because you ate a poisonous cactus and the sun is slowly cooking your dehydrated brain, you believed an albino wish-granting camel would give you water.”

Nodding, Pierre said, “Yes, his name is Clark.”

Kalid laughed. “Clark told me to do this.”

“Do what?”

It was then that Kalid pushed Pierre into the well. “Don’t drink it all at once.”

Copyright © 2010 Lambpants Media.

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