In my name, Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful. Master of the Day of Judgement.

So they say. So some believe.

All praise is due to Allah, the Lord of the Worlds.

Or at least, the World at a certain glint. From certain viewpoints.

My voice speaks of all, for all, knowing all.

At least to some.

Surely those who disbelieve, it being alike to them whether you warn them, or do not warn them, will not believe. Allah has set a seal upon their hearts and upon their hearing and there is a covering over their eyes, and there is a great punishment for them.

Or perhaps not. Perhaps that is not true.

This Story, there is no doubt in it, is a guide to those who guard. For all and some. For those who wish to read and perhaps even for those who do not.

A tale revealed to you—so let there be no straitness in your breast on account of it—that you may warn thereby, and a reminer close to the believers.

Let the omniscient knowledge and judgement come forth. Or if not, let it simply be a tale of cameleers in أستراليا and nothing more. Praise be unto them.

And so to Adelaide was sent the trained Imam, from Sarajevo where he had previously enlisted in the Yugoslav Army, before which he had been incarcerated by Nazis in a place named Stalag 17 based in Bosnian lands.

Escaping to Brno, the trained Imam then sailed for twenty-six days from Napoli to Melbourne, on a ship where he was the sole Bosnian.

From Melbourne he transferred to Bonegilla, to a migrant settlement camp, seeking halal foods from Albanians, which were shared with Russian and Romanian Muslims.

Upon hearing of the death of an Afghan Cameleer who had financed the construction of a Mosque and served as Mulla, the trained Imam travelled to this Mosque in Adelaide.

Upon visiting the Mosque, the trained Imam noted the congregation small. Only seven attended Eid prayer. All were elderly, retired cameleers. Four lived at the Mosque. What was typically a cause for celebration, had a sombre tone.

Following the service, the trained Imam escorted one of the elderly cameleers to the graveyard. The man was from Kabul. He was frail and needed assistance. He stood before one of the graves for some time. The trained Imam did not ask the elderly cameleer who had died, or what he was thinking.

When they returned, the trained Imam helped the former cameleers prepare bolani. After prayer, they ate in silence.

After dinner, the trained Imam cleaned the plates, and assisted the men to their beds. The elderly cameleer appeared troubled. The trained Imam queried: what is the matter?

The elderly cameleer shooed the trained Imam away.

In the evening, one of the Mosque’s volunteers, a Romanian Muslim, approached the trained Imam: the old man, the cameleer, he is troubled by the tale of نَـاقـة الله‎, the She-Camel of God.

The volunteer continued: He fears that as one who devoted his life to guiding camels, that have now all but served their purpose, he is as the tribal leaders that refused to listen and hamstrung the camel.

The trained Imam responded: that is a misguided fear and a misinterpretation of the Nobel Quran.

The volunteer said: I have told him as much, but he remains grief-stricken.

The trained Imam said that he would try to console him, but the volunteer insisted that no amount of consolation would change the man’s mind. The trained Imam nodded in understanding. He was new and younger, and had yet to earn the man’s respect. Linked with respect was an ability to comfort.

And, the trained Imam knew, comfort was hard to bestow in these times. There was great hatred for these men. At this Mosque, on Little Gilbert Street in the city of Adelaide, many wished that this Mosque, that these Muslims, would disappear.

Such was this nation’s foundation, since federation in 1901: that the skin of its inhabitants must be light. Furthermore, they must speak not only the English language, but all European languages.

The trained Imam had a reverence for the texts that guided men. This text he considered most foul. Yet despite this, he agreed to travel to these lands. Such were the turbulence of the times they were in.

His comparatively paler skin, the trained Imam suspected, was how he had managed to arrive, and how these cameleers’ colleagues and families had not.

Not sin or camels, but this deeper-rooted problem, the trained Imam believed, caused the elderly man’s grief.

This same hatred permeated Europe and the hearts of those that had imprisoned him. The hatred was not identical. It was improper to equate the two. But it was also improper to see zero similarity.

This hatred had failed in Europe. As such feelings would fail here, believed and knew the trained Imam.

The trained Imam told the volunteer: Comfort can come in many forms. In the form of food, and care, and treatment. If we cannot solve matters of the soul let us strive to solve matters of the body. We will care for these men as they cared for camels.

And in so doing, the trained Imam believed, would eventuate a time in which men like this would not fear death as this man did.

I dig holes.

Diggin’ holes’s real necessary work here.

It’s necessary work for this place, which is itself one big hole.

Abandoned, dead, mining town, ghost village smack in the middle’f Queensland, whose name you wouldn’t know and don’t care to know – best to ignore.

Yet here I am, dependent on no one but me, diggin’ holes for fencing to keep in feral camels I’ve taken in so I can milk’em and live off’em: milk and meat and money from selling milk and meat and additional camel-based products to domestic and international markets.

Ethical money’s hard work without any to begin with, as I well know havin’ spent teens and twenties in mining towns where overall-clad folks like myself were the only folks that mattered, the others servicin’ only stores and pubs for us significants in the overalls who in turn serviced the whole damn enterprise, lightin’ up all Australia’s cities and the global steel and aluminium industries, so we can’ve buildings, cars, ships, trains, appliances, weapons that shoot, the whole damn modern world dependent on me driving a big-wheeled truck from A to B for years on end.

Now in this hollowed-out town, further hollowin’ out the ground to stick aluminium fencing into, which is produced using coal (no escapin’ coal), to keep camels in that’d bite and kick me given the chance but I won’t give’em the chance ‘cause I know what I’m doin’, beholden to no one but me and my work, escapin’ from… what exactly I’m escapin’ from is hard to say or articulate with a straight face, but what I’ll say is a few months ago I decided to go sober and realised that wasn’t enough, the years of drinkin’ in mining towns (‘cause there’s nothin’ else to do but drink and work in mining towns) versus the economic haemorrhagin’ that is city life (d’ya know how much Sydney costs?) where by all accounts and observations suit-clad folks just spend their years similarly workin’ and drinkin’, and me without any real qualifications or want for qualifications ‘cause all I was ever good at was doin’ FIFO, flyin’ from A to B to drive a truck from A to B, so I figure’d maybe buyin’ worthless land in a worthless city seemed no nuttier than the alternatives.

That’s what it’s come to, callin’ everythin’ crazy so I seem sane, here diggin’ in the heat (probly should’ve got up at sunrise or waited till dusk) and talkin’ to myself ‘cause there isn’t anyone else except my own thoughts and the camels and nothin’ to drink but the gallons of water I get from the shop which is too far away to warrant a trip more than once a week, during which I talk to myself or sing along to the same The Living End CD I bought when I was in high school (well we don’t need no one to tell us what to do/ oh yes we’re on our own and there’s nothing you can do/ so we don’t need no one like you, to tell us what to do), which seemed to have meaning when I was a kid and I s’pose has meaning now in as much as it holds a sort of fondness for bein’ a kid in which rebellin’ against the system seemed fun (‘cause I’m a brat/ and I know everything and I talk back) but was really nothin’ more than an excuse to play guitars and bang heads, but it’s a process everyone goes through, part of becomin’ mature if I can be called that yet, those same kids rebellin’ would’ve resented me drivin’ trucks for big coal as they sip their cheap beers from aluminium cans, but you can’t be too judgemental against anyone including yourself, which is why I’m here diggin’ holes, tryin’ to delay another trip to town to chat with the store owner who indulges me ‘cause he knows I’m tryin’ my best, and is probly secretly countin’ the days until I give up my camel project, but I won’t give up ‘cause it’s important to finish what you start, like when I first put that app on my phone that said how many days I’d gone without drinkin’ and it’s still tickin’ along, been over a year or so now, and I’m still here and soon the camels’ll be milkin’ and I’ll be cuttin’ up steaks and curin’ meats and churnin’ cheese and sending it this way and that, and the money’ll come in and I don’t care if I’m rich or not, that was never the plan or intention.

The earth’s hollowed out, the town’s hollowed out, and me I’m hollowed out and determined to fill it –life, town, self, world– with camel-based products developed from camels found, captur’d, nurtur’d, the entire beast utilised as Native Americans supposedly did or said they did to show respect for the animal, to waste nothing’s the great and grand ideal, to live in perfect equilibrium, to literally reap what you sow, which is not a sayin’ that applies to everythin’ or anythin’ ‘cause no one ever truly gets fair treatment, or perhaps my belief that treatment should be fair’s twisted by unfairly bestowed ideals that people should give back and live sustainably, which is impractical given life thus far has not been sustainable, may never be sustainable, and yet here I am plannin’ to sustain all over the place, substance and sustenance produced, includin’ but not limited to camel milk, raw camel milk, frozen camel milk, skim camel milk, camel milk-based baby formula, camel milk butter, camel milk cheese, camel milk ghee, fermented camel milk (chal/shubat), camel milk yoghurt, camel milk chocolate, camel milk bread, camel milk liqueur, camel milk soap, camel gelatine, camel hair rugs, camel hair blazers, camel skin leather bags, camel skin leather jackets, camel meat (fresh), camel meat (cured), a list that’ll continue to grow ‘cause the entire world can be solved through the use of this beast, even the fleas in its fleece could be used like they do in Mexico where they’re experimentin’ with bugs as protein, mashed up into a powder and used in bars like chocolate, considered environmentally-friendly, a respectable response to the devastatin’ impact of agriculture and battery farming and food production for people’s maws all waitin’ for slaughtered cattle and chooks, every day obese cows just sit in paddocks and fart and frolic and waste energy, in some parts of Japan I hear they even feed cows ice-cold beer to stimulate appetite so they become uniquely fat and their flesh marbles, and they’re even massaged and sung to in order to ensure they’re stress-free (must be nice), and it’s anecdotes like this that make you want to pack it in when you realise humans are truly bizarre, unsustainable, freakish, simultaneously capable of the most outlandish feats (I read the other day a restaurant in the middle of Sydney is servin’ pregnant octopus with accompanin’ saké) while also too lazy to acknowledge or respect where things come from and who does what to get food to their mouth, they just shovel it in without a care, even during the 2020 pandemic when check-out chicks and grocery workers risked lives for minimum wages and farmers toiled in bushfire-devasted lands to try and get something halfway decent to the dinner table, the man-on-the-street couldn’t care less, would rather party on Bondi Beach, numbin’ their minds to reality, as I’m out in the yard, tryin’ to get this camel to move, fearin’ it might give me a nasty bite or kick that could cause infection or require facial reconstruction, yet once I’ve got my camel-based products they’ll complain about the price, wonder why it’s not the same as the cow-equivalent at Woollies, ignorin’ the fact that at any moment I could surely die, despite the admirable infrastructure of the Royal Flying Doctor Service, this is the problem of living by myself, I have to do everything by myself, and if something terrible were to befall me I’d surely die, and ants and cockroaches would go at my body, possibly also camels ‘cause they’re most certainly omnivorous – they’ll eat anything – and I’m in the middle of nowhere, an abandoned hole of a town, you can count the population on one hand, there’re only people here waiting to die, which is true of anyone or anywhere when you get right down to it, but I refuse to be so cynical, to regard humans as pestilence, not sure if that’s Christian or Muslim or plain old bogan-as-hell saccharine sentimentality, but I stand by it, me who has stupidly bought land in an abandoned town and economy, operatin’ in a self-imposed restricted business plan, touting a product no one knows they want, probly don’t want, definitely don’t ‘need’, all under the banner that it’s ‘sustainable’, to whom and to what and to what end I don’t know, but at some point you’ve just got to stop the pity party and do something about something, ‘cause if you just whine you don’t get anywhere, though I’ve heard there’s a certain release from complaining, that shared complaint is shared human experience, which is what this rant I’m spoutin’ surely is.

There’s no goin’ back now, no returnin’ to what I once was or thought I wished to be, I’m now goin’ to spend the rest of my days stuck out here tryin’ to make the camels work, and if they don’t work they’ll break me, of that I’m certain ‘cause if these camels of mine don’t sustain me they’ll destroy me like booze threatened to, like booze would’ve had I not opted one morning when the hangover was simply too much decided then and there that I’ve got to stop, as I’d said so many times before but then ‘round late arvo I’d be at it again, after the work had clocked off ‘cause there’s nothin’ else to do in these empty towns but drink, sleep, drink, work, work, and drink, nothing but booze and camels, camels and booze, and I figured if I was goin’ to live in this kind of place I’d rather be usin’ the camels than drinkin’ booze ‘cause even though camels can be a headache, they don’t literally give you a headache, so camels are my choice, my fate, new vice, what I’m addicted to, what I’m doin’ instead of yoga or exercise or helpin’ the community, not a perfect substitute but it does the job, it’s a new challenge each day, as each is for those who opt to replace booze with somethin’ that’s non-booze, and every new effort requires twice as much as the previous time or day, it doesn’t get easier but more difficult, a steeper cliff to climb, and you’ve just got to see it through, continue, not stop, not for anything, despite the heat and the flies and the oasis-like desire of other mining towns in the process of bein’ hollow’d out, in which one could drink, sleep, drink, work, work, and drink (I remember one little pub had a brand of whiskey, or maybe it was mezcal, with a little picture of a camel with a sombrero on the bottle label), the money pilin’ up as it’s not doin’ now ‘cause camels aren’t as lucrative as I’d hoped, people tell me there’s no customer for it, there’s no way people’ll switch from the beloved cow, but I reckon if I can replace grog with camels, camels surely can replace anything, can be – and this I reckon above all else – a substitute for everything, the whole enterprise, livin’ off these camels that live off everything else, multiplyin’, eatin’, drinkin’, shittin’, that’s all camels do every day, as I did in mining towns, but they’re better at it than me, than us, they’re the real experts, the true success story in this country, not Kerry Packer, not the Prime Minister, but the camel made it big here, dominates everything, I’m merely their facilitator, and no, I’m not crazy from the heat or not eatin’ properly or not socialisin’, I’m makin’ perfect sense, I’ve got total clarity, pinpoint predictions about the future of this nation in which cars will be replaced by camels and schools will be taught by camels and companies will be run by camels, and farms will produce crops from camel manure, to farm more camels, to produce additional camels, to be eaten by other camels, in their camel houses, cannibalisin’ everything, as they’re want to do, as they do better than us, as they’re all doin’ right now, there’s camel bite marks on my arm right now, and they’re comin’ for all of us, they’re chompin’ away at the landscape, eatin’ the country from the middle out, like termites, if termites were camels, which they’re not ‘cause camels would eat them too, along with the wood and the bark they depend on, ‘cause they’re relentless, there’s no stoppin’ them, you’ve gotta give in to somethin’, and I’ve chosen camels ‘cause camels chose us a long time ago, I see it in their eyes, and their self-righteous snorts, and their struttin’ round the desert like they own the place, ‘cause they do own the place, they’re unimpressed and uncontained by my attempt at a fence, which I’m still strugglin’ to place, these holes not holdin’, these rails and netting doin’ nothin’ to keep ‘em in, the camels just tear it down, maybe not right away, but eventually, if anythin’ they’re fencin’ me in, dependin’ on which way you look at things, which is not a question the camel asks itself, it assumes the fence is just another thing to be chomped, to be consumed, to be taken down, to be hollowed out, like we think we’re hollowin’ out the country, but we’re not, ‘cause camels are the real miners, the real BHP Groups, the real Rio Tintos, the real Fortescue Metals, they make the metal and mineral monopolies look like corner stores, their infrastructure is greater, their business plan is fiercer, their acumen superior, they don’t need to fly in or fly out, they’re always here, always workin’, always at it, on top of everythin’, and one day I hope to get a job with the camels’ company, ‘cause it is the most powerful, the most widespread, the most authoritative presence in the country, and I’ll submit my references and CV, and the board of camel directors and the camel H.R. manager (only humans need managin’, camels need no such departmental guidance) will snort and sniff my application, and shrug their sinewy camel shoulders and huff an acceptance, ‘cause there’s no sayin’ no to the camel enterprise, everyone joins eventually, you either work for the camels or get destroyed by the camels, there’s not really a difference, the camels will do their thing either way, so I may as well sign up, and fly in to the camels, and fly out again from the camels, and sleep with the camels, and drink with the camels, and work with the camels, and drink some more with the camels, doin’ all my camel business, in pursuit of camel ideals, which are far from noble, but the camel is not a noble creature, I sure as hell can’t stand the sight or smell of ‘em, hate the raw taste of ‘em, but it’s all I can taste now, a firm camel film has attached itself to my senses, this is my world now, there’s no such thing as a world without camels, no such taste on this earth that doesn’t taste of camels or camel-based products, no such smell on this earth that doesn’t smell of camels or camel-based products, no sight that doesn’t remind me of a camel, the mountain ranges are camel humps, the flat horizon is a desert just waiting to be dotted with camels that do nothin’ but multiply, chomp, drink, shit, that is the agenda now, all of our agendas are now that of the camel, moving forward, from this point on, beside this hole that refuses to accept this pole, to connect a fence barrier, we must all just call it quits, admit failure, the camels have won, have always won, had won before you even entered the picture, and it feels good to acknowledge defeat, to stare your competition directly in the eyes, even as you chew on camel jerky (which comes from the Quecha word ‘Ch’arki’ or perhaps ‘charqui’ or perhaps ‘charque’ or perhaps ‘charqueadas’, and was originally prepared by indigenous people near Lake Titicaca), the fatty hump meat having been cut into strips and dried, the camel indifferent to your chewing flesh of its kind, it is unaffected, without sympathy, cold-blooded, reptilian, the heart of the camel non-existent, not at all connected to the kidney or adrenal glands through renin-angiotensin-aldosterone mechanisms, definitely not thirteen inches in circumference, not at all a great source of iron with a chewy texture that causes great intestinal upset the following day, far worse than any hangover ever was, it was never enough to prevent you from going to work, like now, who have decided to stop, given that the sun is going down, and it is late afternoon, and I am tired from working, and not able to sleep, ‘cause I can still hear the camels gruntin’ and plannin’ and plottin’, with a desire to shame me further, I can sense it (surely everyone else can too), if only they would band together, and drink their milk, and cut off their skin, and eat their flesh, we might stand a chance of conquerin’ them, but the will is not there, the world is not able, the population incapable of collective action, which is why all these towns are hollowed out, which is why these camels are hollowin’ me out, which is why I am now, formally, submittin’ my resignation, my application to join the camels, please, mighty camels, accept me, your humble servant, your willing flier in and reluctant flier out, your thirsty worker, your desperate shoveler, your slave who will begrudgingly but punctually fulfil your unending appetites, which will never be satiated until there is nothing left, at which point the obese camels, having consumed the world, will lay down, their humps so overstuffed they weigh more than the sun, as they float off beyond our galaxy, in search of additional people and planets and solar systems to sink their teeth into.

I dreamed I saw a camel atop Ayer’s Rock. I was perplexed by how it got up there. The rockface was surely too steep for it to have climbed. I feared that it would be unable to get down, and would have to remain up there, starving, its carcass forever rotting away. It should not be there, of that I was certain, but I had no authority to tell it otherwise. It chilled me that I could do nothing to call it down. There was no one else there except my wife. Just me and her in the red desert with the big red thing and the camel atop it. It scared me that the glare of the midday Northern Territory sun was not hot. In fact, it was icy. I shivered.

I woke to find that my wife, Patricia, had turned the air conditioning on. It was blasting, attempting to bring the room’s temperature to 16 degrees Celsius. It sounded like a jet engine. A stream of condensate was flowing down our motel wall.

It isn’t called Ayer’s Rock. It’s called Uluru. Or perhaps it’s not even called Uluru. In my dream, I didn’t know what it was. The Ayer’s Rock of my mind seemed inconsistent. Fluid dust. Membranous. Brain-like.

Yesterday, Patricia and I completed the ‘Sunrise at Ayer’s Rock on Camelback’ tour. We paid $250 for the experience. We travelled around the big red thing on camels, led by our individual guide, also atop a camel. The camels had muzzles on their snouts and had seemed resigned to their task. I felt like I shouldn’t be sitting on top of them. Like they resented it. Yet I still had my wife take a photo of me on the animal, with my hands in the air, grinning cheekily. She has already uploaded the photograph to our family’s WhatsApp thread. My two children and one grandchild all seemed to like the image.

‘How come it gets to go up there, but we don’t?’ lamented Patricia, in my dream. ‘I want to see what it sees.’ Patricia never once complained about now being able to scale Ayer’s Rock/Uluru. She’s normally very agreeable and sympathetic, but in this dream, she wasn’t. Perhaps this dream wasn’t representative of my wife. It’s hard to say. I’m no dream-interpreter. I just know what I felt. And I felt resentful of her attitude. Then. Not now.

The two of us woke, showered, and made our way to the buffet, which was brimming with pastries and fruit. She made her way to the metal servers full of sausages, bacon, and eggs. I opted for coffee and honeydew. ‘You’re not eating?’ she asked, returning with a plate packed with protein. I shrugged and sipped.

That afternoon, as the plane took off from Alice Springs airport, we caught a glimpse of Ayer’s Rock/Uluru. ‘Seems like there’s something on top,’ muttered Patricia. ‘What do you suppose that is?’

I shrugged, which was the honest answer. I felt comforted by my ignorance, dozed off, and fell deep into sleep.