SIETE MINUTOS BY ISMAEL CAMACHO ARANGO: BEGINNINGS

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. Shifting on the mud by the edge of a puddle, Homer played with his toys in the water. After enticing some ants with a sweet he had put in a paper boat, he made it capsize in the mud.

“Hurrah,” he said.

Homer danced around the water, as a woman appeared at the door wearing a dressing gown and with her hair tied in a bun. Avoiding the toys and other things on the floor, she stood by the puddles Homer had made, little dots floating amidst the mud.

She had battled the ants for a long time, after invading the kitchen they had gone to the other rooms until the house had been full of the insects. Shivering in the breeze blowing through the garden, mother pushed a few strands of hair back.

“It’s time for lunch,” she said.

Those words brought Homer back to reality. He had to eat before conquering the world.

“Wash your hands now,” she said.

Leaving a trail of mud on the floor, he washed himself in the sink, as footsteps echoed in the corridor and father appeared at the door. Middle aged, plump and with a round face, he wore an apron over his big stomach while fiddling with his hands.

“I have a surprise,” he said.

Mother stopped with a plate in her hands, smoke rising to the ceiling like a staircase to heaven. Father didn’t bring surprises very often, apart from a day when he had found a puppy in the street but she had taken it to the dog shelter in spite of Homer’s complaints.

A small man interrupted the silence, his glasses shining under the light of the electric bulb. Homer watched the stranger waiting by the door as the clock ticked and silence filled everything.

“Uncle Hugh,” mother said. “We didn’t expect you today.”

After disentangling herself from his arms, mother poured soup on another bowl as Uncle Hugh sat by Homer’s side, before pushing his glasses up his nose. He talked of his adventure in the sea, where he had been sick the whole time.

“You should have taken an alka seltzer,” mother said.

“Nothing works for me.”

Uncle Hugh had not enjoyed the fresh Caribbean sun amidst his bouts of sickness. Homer imagined his uncle looking at the land in the horizon, full of trees and hope, while his stomach hurt. Then the man put a large hand on his shoulders.

“I remember the day you rescued a dollar bill,” Uncle Hugh said.

“After flying to the branches of a tree, he put it in his wet nappy,” mother said.

Homer knew all the rest. A neighbour who happened to be hanging the washing at that moment dropped her husband’s pants in the mud, and he left her for the barmaid living next door.

School children sang songs of glory as Father Ricardo praised the qualities of the child during Sunday mass, and everyone loved him because he was a star. Then 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 without much hair and a toothless smile, sitting in a chair. The man waited for the reaction to the memory of that moment in time when he had snapped reality forever.

“I developed it in my studio,” Uncle Hugh said.

“I remember those times,” mother said.

Mother served lunch in his plate, while she spoke of Homer’s birth in the mist of time. Born during a solar eclipse, he had cried for the first time with the retreating shadows, while doctors and nurses looked at the sun from the hospital roof.

An old nurse who didn’t have good eyes had helped with the delivery, and Homer had been born after mother had pushed a few times. Then the nurse had muttered those famous words.

“You have a girl,” she said.

The sun had been absent during Homer’s birth as he hid behind the shadow of the moon. Mother thought she had the daughter she always wanted while father sulked, and the nurse delivered the placenta. She discovered her mistake a few moments later.

“He had lots of dark hair,” father said.

After wiping a tear, she looked at the pictures on the wall, where she held a baby in her arms. Homer felt the luckiest boy in the world, as everybody loved him, even if the sun had left him in darkness at the beginning of his life. Uncle Hugh fumbled in his pockets, where he found a shiny cent with Simon Bolivar in one of its faces.

“Put it in your money box,” he said. “It will bring you good luck.”

“He’s a good boy,” mother said.

Homer admired the coin as the moment stretched into infinity, and the brown marks on the wall turned into monsters, fighting amidst the buildings where the dollar reigned supreme. Homer played with his cars as Uncle Hugh spoke of chasing film stars in their limousines in a place called Broadway. He had seen Marilyn Monroe in the streets filled with the colours of the morning or the grey curtains of the night, while showing her pants forever.

Money filled Homer’s mind in that first day of his life, when he had found out the mysteries of the world. Then something extraordinary happened. At first Homer saw a shadow behind the tree, but then he noticed a boy's dirty hair and freckles. He had a sense of déjà vu, while studying the child behind the tree branches.

“Hello,” he said.

The boy remained quiet as time went past in this new reality where someone had invaded Homer’s universe.

“I’m Jose as you know,” the child said at last.

“No, I don’t.”

Homer studied the stranger he had never seen in his life, as he left muddy streaks across his face after wiping his nose. He didn’t know why the child lied but he seemed nice.

“Would you like to play with my cars?” he asked.

Jose ran one of the trucks along the track of dirt leading to the fence, before falling in the mud. After washing his hands in the water tap by the door, he played with the cars again.

“I come from the jungle,” he said.

Those words broke the spell the child had brought to Homer’s world, even though he had never seen him in his life.

“You’re a liar,” Homer said.

“I’m not,” Jose said.

They rolled amidst the mud, disturbing a few birds looking for worms in the mess, but as Homer barked, the child stopped his attack.

“Are you a dog?” he asked.

Jose imitated him but Homer shook his head.

“You have to do like this,” he said.

As he pursed his lips, he howled aloud. Jose took a deep breath and barked as Homer clapped his hands.

“Yes,” he said.

They barked while holding their cars and the dog next door howled. Then Homer’s mother appeared at the door.

“That dog is too noisy,” she said. “I’ll complain to the owner.”

She didn’t notice Jose and Homer imagined the child living in another world he had yet to discover. As mother left to finish her homework, Homer thought he had known the boy for a long time, even before his birth under the dark sun. Then Jose gestured at the stars that had appeared in the sky, as the sun set in the horizon.

“They’re mine,” he said.

Homer saw specks of light shimmering through the darkness while the child ran in circles around the tree, chanting strange words and touching the bark.

“Two and two are seven,” he said.

Homer frowned. “No, it isn’t.”

“I say that whenever I feel worried.”

Shadows spread around them and more stars appeared in the sky, as Homer followed his friend. After a few minutes of chanting and calling, they sat down by the tree.

“You have to remember,” Jose said.

“What do you mean?” Homer asked.

“You’ll see.”

Thinking Jose wanted to play another game, Homer ran around the tree shouting and barking but the child had gone. As he looked for him all over the garden, he found a roll of papers on the floor. They must have fallen out of Jose’s pocket as he ran away from the shadows of time. Words in another language intermingled with drawings of the sun, looked back at him. He had to keep them for Jose whenever he decided to visit him again.

Homer spent a boring evening, as his parents counted the money they had earned during the day and Uncle Hugh told them about his life in the USA. After looking at the window, Homer saw stars peeking behind the clouds, and the Milky Way had to be up there, where suns burned amidst dust and gas like Jose had said. He listened to the sounds of the night while shadows danced by the tree.

“Mum,” he said.

“Do you want to go to bed?” she asked.

“Don’t have bad dreams tonight,” Uncle Hugh said.

Homer rushed upstairs after wishing them goodnight. Once in his room, he emptied his bag on the bed and counted all the pesos he had collected over the weeks, but his uncle’s coin was the prettiest. Homer put it in his bag before he went to sleep.

Uncle Hugh slept in the guest room, next to marks on the wall undergoing some kind of transformation. Homer imagined his uncle fighting the spirits of the house when they slept that night.

He thought of the mysteries of his birth, while retreating into a world full of fantasy, dreams and nightmares. Jose had to be real if he had played with his toy cars but he had to remember something...

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