Siete minutos by Ismael Camacho Arango (the little red hen read aloud TXT) 📖

have to do with the light?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
Homer saw shadows looking at him beyond the candle, while the woman put the cards on the table.
“Pick another card,” she said.
As Homer took one of them, the woman shook her head.
“A child keeps you company in the darkness,” she said.
“What happened before the darkness?” he asked.
The light came back, chasing the shadows away from the room, as Lola brought some more cups of coffee in a tray.
“You must finish with the danger,” the woman said.
“I don’t understand,” he said.
“Stop it, mother,” Lola said.
“He has to know.”
She had let them make love in the sitting room while guessing his luck and the end of time.
“It’s Armageddon,” the woman said.


Homer is in love
Homer had fallen in love, a beautiful woman changing the way he saw the world. He bought some soap and had a bath, but he wanted Lola to soap his back. He had never done so many things on the same day, while Lola slept alone. Chastity might be a good thing sometimes.
You know where to start when you are in love but you don’t know when it will end. Homer invited Lola to have an ice cream that afternoon but he had a glass of water to save his money. Nobody had ever seen Homer looking so cheerful, even if he forgot to bark in the neighbour’s house. It had to be a miracle. Travelling to the port that week, he sat next to the driver and slept in a hotel that charged a few hundred pesos per night but it didn’t end there. The truck driver wanted to keep a bit of a coconut Homer had bought in the port.
“It will bring me good luck,” he said.
Everybody felt happy as Homer looked at his reflection in the mirror.
“You can leave me in the corner,” he told the driver.
“Good luck, Mr. Homer.”
“Thank you.”
As Homer waited for his love, before the sun set behind the buildings, he saw her coming along the street, wearing a pink a rose by her breasts
“Give us a smile,” the shop owners said.
Lola didn’t answer their comments before meeting Homer.
“This is for you,” he said.
Lola saw the present he held in his hand. A coconut didn’t seem the best thing in the world for someone who wanted to be rich one day.
“Can I come with you?” he asked.
She shrugged. “I don’t know.”
He followed her along the street but Lola moved fast, even though he had promised to love her for an eternity.
“Wait for me,” he said.
“You are evil.”
“Lola...,” Homer said.
He crashed with a few people standing in his way, while chasing her along the street.
“Cretin,” someone said.
“Shut up,” he said.
Homer thought of her mother’s predictions amidst the market. The girl ignored him even though they had a good time the other night and the world might end one day.
“We love you,” an old lady said.
“He’s a saint,” someone else said.
He managed to get out of the tumult, as lightning lit the street and Father Ricardo appeared by his side like an ambassador of hell. The priest looked fat and happy with himself, while showing his false teeth.
“Women will kill you one day,” Father Ricardo said.
“I know.”
“Stop chasing them then.”
“How did you know?” Homer asked.
“God tells me everything.”
Thunder rumbled around them as Homer reflected in Lola’s words and the rain threatened the market. Lola’s mother had to be jealous of her daughter’s youth or she knew witchcraft.
“You must read the scriptures,” father Ricardo said.
“I see.”
“You never do.”
On arriving at his shop, Homer found Miguel serving the customers but Maria had not come.
“Nobody loves me,” Homer said.
“You have your girlfriend,” Miguel said.
“Her mother is weird,” Homer said.
He reproached himself. Why had he spent so much money in the girl? This question kept on repeating itself like a character in a nightmare. Why did he give her the coconut? He could have fed himself with it for a week, and the ice cream had been expensive. Homer had seen people eating, drinking and spending money without a care in the world. They had to be crazy. People who took care of their money looked fat and healthy but Homer didn’t feel well.
He missed Lola’s firm breasts and sex appeal, as he masturbated repeatedly, dreaming of a muddy lake full of bits of women and dollar bills. He had been destroyed by sex, mud, sex and mud.
Wondering if the manuscripts might have an answer to his mental distress, he found the roll of papers Jose had left on the floor. Sitting down at the table, he spent a long time writing down his own interpretation of the words throughout the pages. They had to be important, if Jose had left them on the floor. Homer remembered his childhood, when Uncle Hugh had visited his house and nothing else mattered in the world.
“Two and two are seven,” he said.
Homer copied some of the letters amidst the problems of his life. He had to understand those lines, leading him to the end of time. Miguel found him on the floor later on.
“It’s Armageddon,” Homer said.
“You must go to the doctor,” Miguel said.
“They charge money.”
Miguel brought him milk and brandy and Homer felt much better but then he found out what he had and felt ill again.
“You don’t have to pay for anything,” Miguel said. “It’s a present.”
Homer felt some of the darkness leaving his mind for the moment.


Disgrace
As Lola moved past the people doing their shopping in the market, the builders admired her charms. On arriving at the church, she went through its heavy doors, decorated with Latin words to keep the devil away from the town, before she noticed the confessionary by the altar. Kneeling by its side, she peered within the shatters hiding God’s representative on earth from normal souls.
“I have sinned, father,” she said.
Father Ricardo shifted in his seat expecting to hear some more silly things. Some people liked to talk for a long time when he had to help his parishioners in other ways.
“I have slept with three men at the same time,” Lola said.
“In the same bed?” he asked.
“No father. I’ve seen the sergeant during the day, Homer in my room in the evenings while Fray Serapio hid under the bed.”
Father Ricardo knew Fray Serapio had been up to something. He would run up to anything wearing skirts in the street, even if it compromised his position as God’s representative on earth.
“What do you want to do?” he asked.
“I don’t know, father.”
“You must pray,” he said.
Puttying her hands together, she uttered a prayer, hot tears scalding her cheeks and landing in her dress. She had to ask Father Ricardo a question, before the Lord took pity of a sinner like her.
“Has Homer had sex with the widows?” she asked.
Father Ricardo had to tell the truth whatever the consequences.
“He was sick,” he said. “The women helped him get better.”
Lola punched the wooden decorations on the edge of the confessionary. Homer didn’t need the widows to feed him when he had so much money in the world. Kicking one of the pews, she left an ugly mark in the surface.
“You’ll go straight to hell with that temper,” Father Ricardo said.
Lola had something else in her life. Her period had not come this month in spite of all the things she had done. She had jumped from a sofa and eaten hot potatoes with mustard but the blood had refused to stain her pants.
“I think I’m pregnant,” she said.
Father Ricardo jumped at the sound of her voice. The girl had done it this time.
“Is it Fray Serapio’s?” he asked.
Lola shook her head. The priest practiced coitus interrupts, even though he made a mess in the bed every time he slept with her.
“What are you