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

/> “Our people die in the concentration camps,” Uncle Hugh said.
“That’s terrible,” Homer said.
“We must do something about it.”
Homer had to defeat Hitler’s reign of misery with the cash he had saved after years of working hard in the shop. On opening his suitcase, he found the clothes he had brought from the market.
“You must wear a coat,” Uncle Hugh said.
Homer shrugged. “I know.”
After putting his best shirt on, Homer looked at his reflection in the mirror. He had to convince New York of his dreams for a better world amidst the chaos of war. Turning around a few times, he tried his best smile, his green eyes sparkling under the light.
“I love you,” he muttered to himself.
“Let’s go,” Uncle Hugh said.
They emerged in the street full of people, who didn’t care about the war in Europe as women held their children’s hands and men looked tough.
“They have shops bigger than El Baratillo,” Uncle Hugh said.
“I want to see them,” Homer said.
“We’ll go there another day.”
Homer remembered his shop in Miguel’s hands, where Maria’s teats had given him pleasure, the chasm between her legs a black hole in the universe.
“They want to meet you,” Uncle Hugh said.
“That’s nice,” Homer said.
Homer imagined selling his merchandise on easy terms and without any interest to the people he found in the streets. They might want to buy his clothes or try his coca.
“Two and two are seven,” he muttered to himself.
“I thought so.”
A woman with black hair and a round face greeted them on the tenth floor of a building with a nice garden and graffiti on the walls.
“This is Homer,” Uncle Hugh said.
The woman smiled. “I’ve heard lots about you.”
Her dark eyes studied all his movements, while leading them into a flat full of flowers and noise. A few people sat around a table, looking sombre in sharp contrast to their surroundings.
“This is Homer,” Maria said.
“Hi,” they said.
Homer sat down as everyone talked at the same time but Maria restored the order.
“Homer has something to tell us,” she said.
Homer realised his importance, while everyone looked at him from across the room
“I’ll use my ships to defeat the intruders,” he said.
“You’re our hero,” they said.
On listening to their stories of bravado during the war in Europe, he found these people endearing.
“I escaped from the Nazis,” a man said.
He had dug a tunnel under a prison in a concentration camp, where hundreds of people died every day under Hitler’s orders.
“They gassed us in the bathroom,” he said.
“It must have been terrible,” Homer said.
“These are the pictures,” he said.
Someone had taken a camera inside one of the prisons where a few skeletal people looked ill, the guards standing by their side.
“This is me,” the man said.
Homer saw a thin man and a few other victims of the Nazis.
“I dug the tunnel to freedom with spoons and forks.”
“You are tough,” Homer said.
“Long live Homer,” everyone said.
They made a collection to help his plans, the fire of freedom burning throughout that part of New York, while Homer heard the notes dropping in the basket
“This is to help the war effort,” Maria said.
“Thank you,” he said.
He tasted the spices she had eaten for lunch while touching her breasts, full of freedom and love for her country. She didn’t object when he looked at her teats, hiding under her blouse.
“That’s nice,” he said.
Homer lifted her skirt under the tablecloth, where her vagina waited for his caresses. As he tickled her clitoris, she ejaculated amidst the voices of their country men and women discussing the gift of freedom in the world. He had managed the impossible.
“You’ll have your money,” she interrupted his daydream.
“I know.”
He would help his country, while she gave him pleasure. After wiping his hands with a serviette, he accepted all the money they had collected in the name of freedom.
“I promise to put my boats at your service,” he said.
“Hurrah to Homer,” they said.
They toasted to the hero, as snow blanketed the world outside the windows and New York welcomed him in style.


Homer’s invisible friend
Homer had to help the war in Europe, and instead of dying in New York he would do it at the bottom of the sea, the USA government giving him free arms in order to liberate the world.
“I haven’t forgotten you,” Homer told Miguel in one of the first transatlantic phone calls of the century.
Miguel sighed. “Thank you, Mr. Homer.”
Amelia cried, while talking to Homer on the phone. The child wanted to fight for her country one day, even though her dad opposed her feelings for the army.
“You’ll come to visit me one day,” he said.
“I’ll do that, Uncle Homer.”
Miguel’s family had helped him after his parent’s death and before he conquered the world. After promising a few more things, Homer put the phone down as Uncle Hugh appeared at the door.
“Maria has sent you something,” he said.
“Maria?”
“The girl you kissed last night.”
He gave Homer a check for a few thousand dollars, donated by his country men and women to defeat the enemy.
“Thank you,” Homer said.
“You must thank her.”
“I’ll do it later.”
Homer’s money had multiplied in his account since his arrival at New York, whilst the world waited for its freedom. Foreigner wants to help his country, it said in big letters across the paper his uncle had bought that morning. No one talked about the widows or anything else in his life.
“I hope to defeat fascism,” Homer said.
Uncle Hugh nodded. “That’s a good idea.”
Homer thought of his ships bringing him lots of money by fighting Hitler’s troops. Then he found the papers Jose had left on the floor, hoping to sell them in foreign lands.
“They belonged to my invisible friend,” Homer said.
Uncle Hugh had a look at the strange language through the pages full of nonsense.
“People are not invisible,” he said.
“Is it in the papers?”
Homer remembered the day Lola’s mother had spoken of his future amidst the candles and the thunder of hell.
“It’s written somewhere,” he said.
Shutting his suitcase, he got ready to bring peace to the world while the manuscripts waited for someone else to decipher them. Then he read the letter the American government had sent him in order for his ships to bring peace to the world.
“You have a duty to defend your land,” Homer read. “By fighting for the freedom of your country.”
They also offered an amount of money for his services to the country in times of war.
“They are paying you a few million dollars,” Uncle Hugh said.
“I know.”
“Aren’t you lucky?”
Homer liked the offer, even if he would have to go to Europe, where Hitler waited for him with open arms but he had no other choice. He might get more money by faking his death as a martyr.


Homer sails away
Odysseus would be the first ship to leave the port and surrounded by absolute secrecy. Homer wore an artificial moustache, while the sailors brought machine guns, bombs that looked like corn on the hob and munitions disguised as chocolates. Canons pretending to be canoes as a few tanks camouflaged as ambulances joined the rest of the things to punish Hitler’s men somewhere in Europe.
“Give my regards to our people,” Uncle Hugh said.
Homer nodded. “I will do that.”
Uncle Hugh handed him a letter.
“You must give it to our president,” he said.
Homer leafed through the pages written in his uncle’s fine words to the first man in his country. A crowd had gathered to see the ships depart to their mission, as Homer hugged his uncle for the last time.
“We must fight for democracy,” Uncle Hugh said.
Homer nodded. “I’ll do that.”
A girl appeared with a bunch of flowers, her silhouette visible through her dress.