How the Camel Got Its Hump

In the very beginning

Of the world

There was a camel

Who did not have a hump

And oh

He was a very grumpy creature

And he went around

Eating milkweed

And “Harrumphing”

At anybody who tried

To show him kindness

One day a horse

Approached the camel

With a saddle on
And invited him

To come for a ride

But the camel said ‘Harrumph’

So the horse galloped off

And told his owner

What the camel had said

A dog approached

The camel

With a stick in its mouth

And asked the camel

If he’d like to play fetch

But the camel said ‘Harrumph’

And the dog ran off

And told its owner

An oxen approach

The camel

With a yoke on his neck

And invited the camel

To come help

In the fields

But the camel said ‘Harrumph’

And the oxen returned

To his owner

To relay the news to him

At the end of the very first day

The man called the horse, dog, and oxen together

And told them that because the camel

Wanted nothing to do with the rest of the world

The other animals would have to work

Twice as hard

To make up for its absence

This made the three animals very angry

But they carried on with their work

And every so often

The camel would walk by them

And ‘Harumph’ at them

In a mocking, mocking way

And then move along

Then one day, a Djinn arrived

At the farm

Where the three animals were working

In a magnificent crowd of dust

And gathered the three animals together

To catch up with them

And see how they were liking

The brand new world

The horse told the Djinn

All about the camel

That was refusing to work

Or play

Or engage with the rest of the animals

And was that fair?

The Djinn agreed

That it was not fair

Not one bit

But luckily for the Djinn

And unluckily for the camel

The Djinn knew the camel very well

For the camel was the special creation

Of the Djinn

And so the Djinn felt responsible

For the no-humped animal

And its grumpiness

‘What does the camel say to you,’ asked the Djinn,

‘When you ask him to interact with you all?’

The animals told the Djinn

That the camel says ‘Harumph’

And the Djinn said

He would go see to the camel’s ‘Harumph’

When he found the camel

He instructed him to help the others

But the camel said ‘Harumph’

And upon hearing that

The Djinn nodded his head

And in an instant

A hump formed on the back

Of the camel

‘That’s three days worth of Harumph,’ said the Djinn,

‘Since you let three animals

Do three days worth of work

Without assisting them.

Now you will be able

To work for three days

Without food

And so you shall’

The camel was not pleased

But it did not want

To tempt the Djinn again

So he walked back to the farm

Under great strain

Since the hump is very heavy

And from that day on

The camel became a worker

Alongside the horse

And the dog

And the oxen

But he was still very grumpy

And I suppose

There’s no helping that

But at least now we know

How the camel

Got his hump