Yeknod

Yeknod was born on a Tuesday, which would have been unremarkable if he had been born the right way around.

His mother was a perfectly ordinary donkey. His father was also a perfectly ordinary donkey. Yet when Yeknod arrived, the midwife stared at him for several seconds before quietly leaving the stable.

Yeknod had no head where a donkey's head was supposed to be.
Instead, there was a long, expressive tail.
And where his tail should have been, there was his head.

Nobody knew how this had happened. The village elders blamed a cursed moon. The local priest blamed his parents. His parents blamed each other. Yeknod himself blamed nobody, because he had no idea there was anything unusual about him.

As a foal, he simply assumed every donkey saw the world from behind.

This led to some confusion.

He would walk forward while looking backward, eat hay by backing into it, and repeatedly attempt to greet people who were already behind him. He became exceptionally good at avoiding obstacles, mostly because every obstacle was approaching from what everyone else considered the wrong direction.

Because his eyes were on his backside, Yeknod could look directly at the road behind him while walking forward. He never got lost. He remembered every path he had travelled, every stone, every tree, every turn.

Eventually, people began hiring him as a guide.

Caravans followed Yeknod through forests because he could retrace a route without ever turning around. Children loved riding him because he could watch their backs while they watched his tail. Thieves hated him because they could never sneak up behind him.

Yeknod became known throughout the region as the donkey who was always looking back.

Some called him defective.

Some called him cursed.

Some called him a miracle.

Yeknod didn't care much for any of these names.

He preferred his own.