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

Then she lay on his lap, waiting for nature to make his member stronger.
“I want my heads,” Homer said.
The Indian shrugged. “We have enough coca for the moment.”
Homer’s mind hungered for his freedom as the sun waited somewhere in time and the girl caressed his chest, when they made love amidst his dreams...


Escape
Dreaming of his shop on the other side of the jungle, Homer had gone to a land of love in the sky where Kam reigned supreme.
“I love you,” he said in his dreams.
“Mmmm,” he heard her answering somewhere in the night.
He found Kam by his side, her silhouette visible in the twilight world of the hut, as the taste of herbs penetrated his brain and the hammock moved in the empty space. He waited for some time, his eyes studying the darkness while she slept.
Homer had to act before dawn came to the world. After lowering his legs to the floor, his fingers felt the bumps and cracks of the wall but he couldn’t find a door. He went around the place in a circle looking for that opening to the outside world, while thinking what might happen if she found him amidst the shadows. They could sell his head for a few bags of coca in the nearest town, or they would eat his entrails with potatoes and soup. Shutting his eyes, he wished Jose could solve his problems as Kam whispered in the darkness.
“I want to go home,” Homer said.
“Home,” she said.
“You understand me.”
He took her around the hut, getting entangled in the cobwebs adorning the place. Then he felt something running down his chest and tickling his cock. It had to be one of those spiders living amidst the vegetation or Kam made everything better with her hands.
“Where is the door?” he asked.
“Door,” she said.
“I want to find it.”
She pressed something in the wall and a panel lifted up to the sky full of stars, his feet running over the soft grass. He had to find his way home beyond the trees.
“Will you come with me?” he asked.
“Home,” she said.
They moved under the light of the moon, where no one would find them amidst the shadows of the trees where Kam led him along the path, the sound of the drums greeting his senses.
“Thank you,” he said.
He saw her smiling in the twilight, her breasts bouncing under her gown. She could live amidst the coca bags in his shop, boiling her herbs and talking nonsense forever, while her witchcraft helped the insomniacs of the world. On arriving at the shores of a river, they saw an enchanted forest under the full moon. Homer tasted the goodness of the jungle in its molecules of hydrogen and oxygen, the sound of the drums bringing him back to reality.
“We have to hurry,” he said.
“Kam,” she said.
“I know.”
Muttering something else, she followed him along the shore, even if he couldn’t have the heads.
“They’ll be jealous at home,” Homer said.
“Mmmm.”
“Women will hate you, and men will love you.”
“Home,” she said.
“You know,” he said.
On arriving at a clearing, Homer heard footsteps amidst the darkness. He had to keep his head in place.
“I’m frightened,” he said.
“Kam,” she said.
He kissed her lips. “You are beautiful.”
Homer thought the Indians might sell his head to rich entrepreneurs living in New York, while running through a path in the jungle, the branches of the trees getting entangled in their hair. The light of early dawn filled their world with long shadows and the sun struggled to appear behind the clouds.
“No,” Kam said.
“What is it?”
On gesturing at the sun, she ran along the field, her hair flying in the wind like a mantle.
“Kam,” Homer said.
He followed her through the foliage, scratching his legs with the thorns in his way.
“Kam,” he said. “Don’t leave me alone.”
The drums went on but Kam stayed away. Homer examined a few rags she had left on the floor, her scent assaulting his senses. Wandering through the shores of the river, he found the mules munching their grass by the tents. He had to act fast and before the Indians caught him as he galloped along the path he had followed a few days before, the sound of drums echoing around him. After been riding along the plain for some time, he saw a few houses by the road instead of huts. People appeared out of the doors to welcome the stranger on a mule.
“It isn’t palm Sunday yet,” they said.
“I escaped from the Indians,” he told a policeman. “They wanted to shrink my head.”
“The sun has made you crazy,” the man said.
“It’s true,” Homer said.
The policeman led him to the health centre, where one of the nurses took his pulse, while the patients moved away from him.
“He must be crazy,” they said.
“Where can I take the bus to the nearest city?” Homer asked.
“It leaves tomorrow morning,” she said. “You won’t need the mules anymore.”
Homer kept Kam’s possessions in his bag, a reminder of the journey to the jungle. He had to forget about the heads for the moment.


The sea
Miguel and Maria welcomed Homer back in the shop, although he didn’t get the hero’s welcome he expected. Lucky to be alive, he had to forget about Kam and his adventure in the jungle. That last aguardiente he had by the fire, must have brought his night terrors of hammocks and sex amidst the trees. Homer put the rugs he had found in his safe, a reminder of his adventure in the jungle where Kam had loved him.
Foreign businessman defies the Indians, Homer read in the papers the next day. They didn’t know anything about the jungle where he had nearly died, as he had to think of his next business. On finding his phone under some papers, a woman answered after he had asked the operator for a number.
“This is the library,” she said.
“I want to help the local economy,” he said.
“I don’t understand.”
“This is Mr. Homer.”
He heard her voice again, after a pause, when he thought she had hung up.
“I’ll call you when we arrange something,” she said.
He could talk about money any time he wanted. It had to be his fame as a rich foreigner or his adventure with the Indians in the jungle but then he decided to visit the library even though his mother had warned him against people who read books. They had to be mad.
The sun shone in the sky as he left the shop, searching for his future. After moving through the market for some time, he arrived at a park, where the pigeons chased each other by a fountain and an ugly building loomed in front of him. Municipal library, Homer read in big letters as a young woman stamped a pile of papers in the hall. Homer went inside the building while the clock marked the time and the girl looked at him.
“I want to borrow some books,” Homer said.
“You must fill the library card first,” she said.
She waited for him to write his details in a piece of paper, but Homer had not learned how to write even if he could read.
“I didn’t bring my glasses,” he said. “Could you do it for me?”
She wrote his name and address after asking him some more questions, irrelevant to the sea or whatever else he wanted to know.
“You have the name of a Greek hero,” she said.
“Do you think so?”
“He fell in love with Helen during the Trojan War.”
Homer had never heard of his name sake doing exciting things in the name of love. That wasn’t quite like him. He had to conquer the world without any women by his side, but then she gestured to the back of the library.
“His books are by the window.”
Following her pointing finger, Homer crashed with a child reading some comics, as everyone looked at him.
“Quiet,” they said.
Homer had arrived at the back of the library, where mothers looked at some of the books with their children. The picture of a man with crazy eyes and a big nose looked back at him from a book on a table. The Iliad, he read in big red letters in the book cover. As he sat at the