The Intro Is Two Bars

Camus came to campus astride a camel the hue if not the consistency of Camembert. Its smell attracted students native to that part of the world. Camus, without dismounting, introduced himself and passed out foreign editions of his work. He said a few things about France in the new millennium as the foot traffic flowed around him, and then, strangely, he extolled the virtue of reality show love. With people learning and mimicking that kind of behavior, he declared, most human problems would become moot within two generations. It fulfills our expectations, whether the best or the worst, he forgot to emphasize.

Across the campus was a flower shoppe. Its owner kept a parrot in a cage outside the doorway. The parrot sang out a series of punctuated beeps: it had learned to mimic the sound of a delivery truck backing up. The juxtaposition of progress and nature felled Camus. He had to be helped back onto his camel, which bucked impatiently as if it never had weight to bear. Slumped in its saddle, multi-hued desert scarves trailing behind him, he turned the corner and was gone, image and odor, vanished all at once. I passed by again and found some, but not all, of his books in a public rubbish bin.