1 2 3 4 SIETE MINUTOS ISMAEL CAMACHO ARANGO @-@- Translated and edited by Maria Camacho . SIETE MINUTOS He had Memories before his birth Haunting him at all times The waves of probability Showing the reality of another land Lost in whatever could have been Beginnings 5 The backyard looked dark with its muddy floor and shrubs growing by the wall. As the sun careered through the sky in its journey towards infinity, Homer played with his toys by the edge of a puddle, his paper boats sailing amidst the muck left by the rains. "Hurrah," he said. Homer danced around the water, when a woman wearing a dressing gown and her hair tied in a bun appeared by his side, shivering in the breeze blowing through the garden. "It's time for lunch," she said. Those words brought Homer back to reality, after arriving from somewhere he couldn't remember, even though he might have seen the end of time in the garden muck. "Wash your hands now," his mother said. He washed himself in the sink as father appeared at the door. Middle aged, plump and with a round face, Mr. Homer had to fight the devils of the market in a daily basis in order to bring the food to the table. "I have a surprise for you," he said. Mother stopped with a plate in her hands, as father never brought home anything out of the ordinary, except one day when he had taken a puppy he had found in the street to the dog shelter in spite of Homer's complaints and his wife's pleas of mercy for the little thing. A tall man interrupted them, his glasses shining under the electric light. "Uncle Hugh," mother said. "We didn't expect you today." He smiled. "I have to work in this country." "Your job must be exciting," she said. Mother poured some soup on another bowl, and Uncle Hugh recited his prayers, after seating at the table. "We have to trust the almighty," he said. "How was your journey?" she asked. "I felt sick all the time." "You should have taken an alka seltzer," she said. "Nothing works for me." 6 "New York must be missing you," father said. Uncle Hugh had to remain in his cabin with the curtains drawn in order to stop his ordeal, while suffering with sea sickness for most of his journey. "Welcome to the world," Homer said. He did not know why he had said that, the remnants of a dream he had of his passage through reality still in his mind. "He's funny," Uncle Hugh said. "I remember the day he rescued a dollar bill." "He put it in his nappy, after flying up a tree" mother said. Homer knew all the rest. A neighbour hanging the washing at that moment had dropped her husband's pants in the mud, and he left her for the barmaid next door. School children sang songs of glory, while Father Ricardo praised the qualities of the child during his Sunday mass. Uncle Hugh found a black and white photograph in his bag. "This is you," he said. "I took this picture with my first camera." Homer saw a chubby baby with a bit of hair and a toothless smile, Uncle Hugh managing to snap that moment in time forever, in his small camera. "I developed it in my studio," he said. "Those were the times," mother said. Homer had been born in the midst of a solar eclipse, and as the doctors and nurses looked at the sun from the hospital roof, an old nurse said those famous words after helping with the delivery. "It's a girl," she said. Mother thought she had a daughter, and father sulked as the nurse found her mistake a few minutes later. "He had lots of hair," father interrupted the silence. Mrs. Homer held a baby in one of the pictures on the table, while Homer stood next to his parents in another one of the snaps. "We called him Homer," Father said. "It might bring him good luck." 7 Uncle Hugh smiled. "He's Homer Homer then." "That's the idea." Uncle Hugh put a cent under the light of the lamp mother had bought in the market. "This is for you," he said. "It will bring you good luck." "He's a good boy," mother said. Homer admired the coin as the adults spoke about nothing in particular, the brown marks on the wall turning into monsters amidst the buildings of New York in Homer's imagination. "Mum," he said. "You can have more soup," she said. Homer shook his head. "I want to play outside." "He's full of beans," Uncle Hugh said. Homer had to get some fresh air before his life finished of boredom. "He'll get filthy," mother said. "Have fun," his uncle said. He had chased film stars in their limousines in a place called Broadway, where Marilyn Monroe showed her pants to the public, in one of those films his father had taken him on Saturday nights. Homer went outside, another universe welcoming him to the world of his imagination, and a child stood by the tree in the eternity of the world. "Who are you?" Homer asked. The stranger wiped his nose, leaving muddy streaks across his face but Homer wanted to be alone in the garden. "Go away," he said. The child picked his nose with dirty fingers, putting lots of microbes in his face. "I'll call my mum," Homer said. The child had to be deaf, like his mother said when Homer didn't listen to her on busy mornings, the noises of the market intruding in his world of ghosts by the tree. 8 "You must remember," the boy interrupted his thoughts. "Remember what?" Homer asked. The boy reminded him of the times they had seen each other in another world, even though Homer did not remember any of it. "We played in the darkness," the boy said. Homer did not like dark places, but the boy kept on talking of things happening in another place he had never seen. "You're a liar," Homer said. The boy kicked a stone. "I'm not." They fought in the dirt, disturbing a few birds looking for worms, before Homer barked. "I'm a dog," he said. "You are not." The child also barked, interrupting the peace of the place. "You must do like this," Homer said. He cupped his hands round his mouth, barking louder than the dog next door as his mother appeared at the door. "That dog is noisy," she said. "I'll complain to the owner." Mother shut the door, leaving Homer alone with the stranger from another dimension, where they must have met before time began, like those stories his mother read to him sometimes. "You must be invisible," he said. The child smiled. "That is one of my tricks." "What is the other one?" Homer asked. "The stars are mine." "That's not true," Homer said. The flow of time increased around them, merging into another dimension no one would have comprehended, and the stars appeared above their heads. 9 "Two and two are seven," the boy said. Homer frowned. "No, it isn't." "I say whatever I want." "It's your mouth." Shadows spread around the tree of life, his mother had called it that name for some reason Homer didn't know. "You have to remember," the child said. "I've heard that before," Homer said. The boy shook his head. "Think of the shadows." Homer stumbled on a few papers his mother must have dropped by the door and the child grew fainter. "Don't go," he said. His friend disappeared in the darkness of the backyard, as Homer's tried to comprehend whatever had happened to his world. "It must be magic," he said. The noise of a cricket calling its females in the garden stopped his thoughts of some other dimensions existing beyond reality. "Where are you?" Homer asked. The garden remained silent, the light coming from the kitchen window illuminating his path back to the house, where his parents had to be talking to Uncle Hugh about his adventures in New York. Homer crashed against a table her mother kept by the wall, the papers he had in his hand falling to the floor, before he steadied himself with his hands. "Ugg," he said. He washed his hands and cleaned his clothes, in the tap his father had installed in the garden, the waves of probability bringing him back to the dimensions of time. "What are you doing?" his mother interrupted his reverie. 10 The light coming from the kitchen blinded him for a few seconds, the feeling of being lost in the universe haunting his senses. "I fell down," Homer said. Mother helped him clean his clothes, muttering something about little boys crashing against the world. "I saw a boy," he said. "No one is here," she said. "He imagines things," father said. He recounted the times Homer had spoken of invisible people inhabiting the house, when he could not see anything out of the ordinary. "He has a good imagination," his uncle said. Homer washed his hands, thinking of the child he must have met somewhere else, whilst Uncle Hugh told them about his life in the USA. "Mum," Homer interrupted. "You must be tired," she said. Homer wanted to tell her of the vision he had seen in that land before his birth, as his mother made him drink the hot chocolate waiting on the table.