SIETE MINUTOS BY ISMAEL CAMACHO ARANGO: NEW BUSINESS

After a night full of pain, mother passed away in the morning. Father Ricardo had done what he could with his prayers and the bible.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

Wiping his tears, Homer saw the room disappearing amidst the clouds surrounding his soul. His mother looked pale in the bed, her dark hair surrounding her head like a halo. She had to be sleeping after the priest had given her the last rites to enter the kingdom of heaven. Maria brought him a tablet and a glass of water to calm the river of tears leaving his eyes.

“You must be strong,” she said.

She muttered a prayer to God, keeping his mother captive in another place and time. Homer didn’t notice anything else in his pain, while Miguel organised the funeral amidst the bags of coca leaves spread about the shop.

The sound of a people coming in the room disturbed his concentration. It had to be the neighbours and friends, coming to give him their condolences. A woman stood by his side holding a handkerchief to her nose.

“I can’t believe it,” she said. “I saw her alive a few days ago.”

Homer heard her talking about her mother’s qualities. She had been a saint all her life, working hard in the shop and looking after her family. He remembered his childhood in a shop filled with boxes of merchandise, where his parents had never made any money, even if they worked hard for many years. Uncle Hugh had brought toys for the child from that country of the north, full of rich people with big houses and swimming pools.

The biggest treat in Homer's infancy had been their outings to the fair to see the bearded woman, the fattest man and the child that fit in a tiny box. He had tried doing that with the boxes in the cellar, scratching his legs and making mother angry.

“The boy in the fair did it, mum,” he had said.

Those sunny days had taught him so many things. He had learned how to annoy the monkey man by throwing paper balls at his cage while shooting the camel woman with his water pistol.

“I’ll miss your mother,” the woman by his side interrupted his reverie.

“She was an angel,” Homer said.

He wiped his tears, while the woman hugged him, as Homer tried to keep his balance. The tablet Maria had given him had taken away the meaning of reality.

“We’ll take her to the cemetery now,” someone said.

Homer wondered why time had gone so fast, as the undertakers surrounded the coffin, and the clock in the wall ticked in the saddest day of his life. Time doesn’t exist here, a voice said in his mind but he dismissed it, as Maria appeared with a glass of water.

“You must have another tablet,” she said. “It will help you to relax.”

Putting the medicine in his tongue, he felt the acid taste, washed down with the water Maria had brought him. Homer tried to get hold of reality as his mother lay dead in the coffin, and the image of the monkey woman came back to his mind. His mother didn’t deserve to be locked for eternity.

“Stop,” he said.

“What did you say?” a little man asked.

“Give him an aguardiente,” the woman said.

He drank the liquid they offered him in a small glass, even if he had the tablet from his pain a few minutes before. Maria led him outside, where the undertaker put mother’s coffin in a black car, reminding him of hell.

“You must sit next to the driver, Mr. Homer,” he said.

Maria helped him to get in the front sit, before climbing in the back. As the rest of the people followed on foot, they took mother to the cemetery, where father waited amidst the flowers and the rain. Mother had paid for her funeral with a life insurance she had purchased before her death.

Homer remembered her putting the money in the bank after doing her shopping every month. The moving car brought him back to reality, dispelling some of the fog in his mind. On arriving at the cemetery, Homer saw the mourners gathering by the chapel of rest, as drops of rain fell on the earth, and the wind ruffled their hair. Father Ricardo appeared by their side.

“The world will miss her,” he said.

“I know,” Homer said.

Wiping his tears, Homer heard the man talking about his mother’s role in the world. She had been a saint, following the right path during her life.

“The doctor couldn’t save her,” he said.

Homer shook his head. “He should have taken her to the hospital.”

“God didn’t want her to live.”

“She was all I had in the world,” Homer said.

Nothing mattered anymore, as a dark land waited for him at the end of time, and Father Ricardo got ready to deliver his message of love amidst the rain and the flowers.

“Dear people,” he said. “We have lost an angel of mercy on this earth.”

He spoke of salvation, while Homer found coca leaves in his pockets. Brittle and dried, they might help him to forget his ache.

He listened to all the good things his mother had done, and how she had suffered in the hands of life, before shutting her eyes forever. After sprinkling holy water over the coffin, Father Ricardo muttered a few prayers to our lord.

“Ashes to ashes,” he said.

“Amen,” everyone said.

Homer remembered the day he had flown, the trees in the cemetery resembling the tree of life in the backyard with its branches searching for the sky. Then drops of rain fell over the world, making everything wet.

“The Devil wants to interrupt this service,” Father Ricardo said.

After opening his umbrella, he talked of the work mother had started in this world, helping poor souls go to the kingdom of heaven.

“She gave me a sum of money every week for poor children begging in the streets,” he said.

Homer heard all the things his mother had done, as tears of frustration left his eyes, already wet with the rain.

“This woman devoted most of her existence to helping other human beings to live better lives,” the priest said.

Homer imagined all the things they might have bought with the money his mother had spent in charities. He chewed some more coca leaves, their bitter taste leaving his mouth dry as the rain dampened his soul.

“She will be remembered by the poor and meek,” Father Ricardo said.

A long line of children appeared along the path singing a hymn, as each one of them threw a single rose on the grave.

“She gave them everything they needed,” father Ricardo said.

Homer didn’t feel very well as Maria squeezed his hand. Then he cried on her shoulders for all the times he wanted a toy or nice clothes while his mother gave everything to charity. Father Ricardo kept on talking of mother’s good work in the kingdom of God.

“She left a life insurance for a widow’s charity,” he said.

A few women dressed in black praised his mother’s work on this earth, but Homer didn’t want to hear anymore terrible things she had done and put more coca leaves in his mouth. Shutting his bible, Father Ricardo talked to the women while stroking the children’s heads and Homer cried for his own life.

“She was a good woman,” Maria said.

“We didn’t have any money.”

“God will thank her,” she said.

“I hope so.”

Homer didn’t know when he might do that, while the crowd dispersed under the rain, and the wind moved the branches of the trees.

“Let’s go,” Maria said.

They went back home through the same streets the funeral cortege had followed before, where people went about their business and the shop looked sad under the rain. As they entered the building, Homer saw the empty space where the coffin had been that morning. Mother had gone forever this time.

“I’ll make some coffee,” Maria said.

Homer had to start anew. His shop would be the best in town, even if mother had given her money to charity.

“I’ll call my shop, El Baratillo,” he said.

“El Baratillo?”

Homer nodded. “Everything will be cheap.”

He would charge hundreds of pesos every week for someone to live in his house, while he slept in the shop. As Maria put the kettle on, he went in the cellar, full of shadows and cobwebs, his footsteps echoing in the lose boards. Maria appeared behind him, with a cloth in her hands.

“I want to sleep here,” he said.

“You must be mad.”

“Mother’s love of charities was crazy,” he said.

He led her to the darkest part of the dark cellar, where moss grew in the corners and boxes of merchandise rose up the walls. Disentangling herself from his arms, she left Homer alone in a place full of grief.

The darkness parted and he saw Jose’s face amongst the bags of coca, another reality intruding into his soul. A moon appeared behind the clouds of a world in turmoil far away from his time.

“Are you coming?” Maria’s voice disturbed the apparition, bringing him back to reality.

Muttering to himself, he had a last look at the cellar without a moon or anything else, before making his way back to the kitchen where Maria waited.

“You shouldn’t trick me like that,” she said.

“I didn’t trick you.”

Standing by the cellar door, Homer remembered that world he had just glimpsed for a second beyond the walls of cobwebs. The darkness had appeared real amidst the clouds of time.

“Do you believe in ghosts?” Homer asked.

Maria frowned. “I have never seen anything in my life.”

Having a last look at the cellar, Homer got ready to start anew after the tragedy, even if he had glimpsed the extraordinary.

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