a friend's sacrifice. part III.

This is the final installment of a three-part series.

When I last left off, we had just arrived at our campsite in the desert and I became best friends with a camel named Beyonce Giselle Knowles.

We ate dinner and watched what was quite possibly the most beautiful sunset I’ve ever seen.  It was absolutely wonderful and I was feeling rather euphoric sitting out there surrounded by all the natural beauty of the desert. It was quite the blissful Circle of Life-esque/spiritual hippie moment for me. I think I was the universe’s/nature’s biggest fan at that given moment:

However, that feeling soon faded as the temperature began to quickly drop. As most intelligent people know, the desert is a land of extreme temperatures. While the days are characterized by blistering heat, the nights are freezing. Such is the way of sand. I was not one of those intelligent people and did not sufficiently prepare for the numbing cold of the desert. Only carrying a light jacket, it became very clear that I had a long and unpleasant night ahead.

When it was time to go to sleep, I could not stop myself from shivering. It was so cold. I stared at Beyonce Giselle Knowles. Enviously. She looked so cozy sleeping in her warm, fur exterior.

I don’t know if my brain was succumbing to the freezing cold temperature, but I couldn’t stop staring at her. All that I could think about was that scene from Star Wars where Han Solo cuts open the body of his Tauntaun to provide shelter for Luke while stranded in the outskirts of Hoth (You don’t know what I am talking about? Shame!) Beyonce began to look more and more like a heated bungalow and less and less like my BFF homegirl.

“I can’t kill Beyonce Giselle Knowles, cut her open, and use her entrails as bed cushions and carcass as an igloo. That’s absurd. Anyway- we are great friends. The best of friends, in fact. We are the dynamic duo! Companions for life! She is Martin Lawrence and I am Will Smith. Batman and Robin! John and Yoko! Sloth and Chunk! Doug and Skeeter! The Golden Girls (if there were only two)! Bette Midler and the woman who dies in BEACHES!  Lindsay Lohan and cocaine! George Foreman and the George Foreman grill!   We are a team. And teammates stick together. Teammates are forever. Teammates never say die. And most importantly, teammates don’t eviscerate one another.”

But it was really cold.

I started to think of all those movies where people form wonderful bonds with animals- bonds that transcend any formed between two humans.  By the end of the film, the animal always ends up heroically sacrificing his/her life for the new human friend. Didn’t that happen in The Great Panda Adventure? It definitely happened in Old Yeller. Beyonce was a noble steed- she would be happy sacrifice herself to save me. We had spent 8 whole hours together- surely she was ready to die for me.

And anyway, after she did, I would be sure to search out her family and let them know of her heroic actions.

I would even raise her orphaned camel child as my own.

I didn’t disembowel my camel. I couldn’t. All I had was a dinky pocket knife. And to do something like that you need a lightsaber, stupid.