I'm a writer and a cryonicist. I'm studying creative writing at the university of Roehampton and I start my third year in September.
I have written two drafts of my own novel. I hope to finish it before Christmas.
I also write poems.
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I have just translated the novel Siete minutos from the Spanish. It was written by my father (Ismael Camacho) a long time ago. This is a poem to celebrate his novel.
SEVEN MINUTES
Homer, money you chased
From babyhood to old age
Then Mario wrote those letters
Of sweet, funny scenes
Throughout a country gone mad
While bureaucrats swam in an orgy
Of blocked roads and crumbling buses
And ghosts danced frantically
At the sound of drums
Homer, you have changed my life
With your yacht
And women
All false
And full of appeal
Until the most famous people
Gathered in that ship
To see the end of the world
As the Beatles played
Their melodious songs
And the sun exploded
In a big bang
Homer the clever
Dreamed by a glorious mind
Interred in the depths of a book
Never published to the world
Sulking in the midst of time
Buried in an orgy of dust
Under a bed
This is the beginning of a biography I am writing of my father.
JOSE ISMAEL CAMACHO
A LIFE
I’m sharing with you the life of a clever, funny and gifted writer, a man who could talk about any topic and knew everything. A father that I miss and wished he could have been preserved for eternity.
Santander del Norte was a quiet province in the norther of Colombia at the beginning of the twentieth century. It had been rocked a few times by the wars between the liberals and the conservadores during the last century. In a quiet village called Lebrija an hour away from Bucaramanga, a young woman (Josefina Camacho) went in labour. She already had two other children and had lost a few others at birth.
Little Horacio Camacho was five years old and his sister Lijia, two years old as they waited with their father outside the room. As Josefina pushed for a last time, a rose faced child appeared in the world, locks of fair hair on his wet head.
The two children outside the room heard the baby crying and pushed the door. The father, Ismael Camacho, rushed to his wife’s side and admired the new addition to the family, while the midwife cleaned the child and cut the umbilical cord.
The midwife didn’t let him near the baby. Josefina had lost another baby during the previous year. The midwife wanted to make sure everything would be fine this time. Ismael led his two other children out of the room. He gave them some lunch while the midwife made sure mother and baby were all right.
That evening little Ismael slept in a small cot by his mother’s side. The sound of cockerels singing woke them up the next morning. As the child cried, his mother put him to her breast. The memory of the other children who died young was fresh in her mind.
Jose Ismael grew up into a chubby child with golden curls. He played with his brother and sister in the countryside around his home. His peaceful childhood shattered when his father died. Jose Ismael was five years old while Ligia and Horacio were six and eight years old.
He travelled with his mother, brother and sister on the back of mules, to a town where his uncles lived. That journey across the mountains must have been exciting for a five year old boy.
This is an extract from my new novel SEVEN MINUTES. It is based in the novel written by Ismael Camacho (my father)in 1971
1 Beginnings
The backyard looked dark with its muddy floor and shrubs growing by the wall, as Homer played with his cars when the sun careered through the sky in its journey towards infinity. Living with his parents in a shop by the market, Homer never had much excitement in his life, apart from the times he made paper boats to sail through a puddle amidst the mud. Hundreds of ants tried to swim ashore, as he followed their attempts to save themselves and their bodies floated in the water under the sun.
“Hurrah,” he said.
He danced around the puddle, lifting his arms to the sky in defiance against the world. A woman had appeared at the door wearing a dressing gown with her hair in rollers. Taking care not to stand in the mud, she avoided all the toys and other things on the floor.
“I’ve killed the ants, mother,” Homer said.
Ants had invaded her home for some time, and she had even found ants in their clothes, looking for anything that might serve as food. Pushing one of her rollers back, she shivered in the breeze blowing through the tree
“Lunch is ready,” she said.
Those words brought Homer back to reality. He had to forget his conquest of the ants for a few moments, to get nourishment for his body. Wiping his hands on his
“You must clean your hands now,” she said.
He left a trail of mud on the kitchen floor, as he moved to the sink, where he washed the mud off his cheeks, neck and arms, while mother brought food to the table. She moved a few things towards the wall to put a bowl of soup with bits of chicken in it. As Homer sat on his seat, father appeared at the door.
“I have a surprise for you,” 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 mother 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 had seen him before in one of the pictures mother kept in an album, but he looked older.
“Uncle Hugh,” mother said. “We didn’t expect you today.”
“I have to chase a story here,” he said.
Uncle Hugh worked as a journalist in New York, where he covered the most important things happening in that city. Then he had kissed the child, leaving the smell of aftershave on his face. After putting a bag on the floor, he pushed strand of hair that had fallen on his eyes, before looking at Homer.
“You were a baby last time I saw you,” he said.
He put a hand on his shoulder, while looking at Homer’s face.
“You toddled around the place,” he said.
He stroked the child’s hair while talking of all the things he had done the last time he had been there. Eating his rice and eggs, Homer didn’t want to hear about that other age when he spoke in baby language and didn’t understand life.
“I remember the day he rescued a dollar bill entangled in the branches of a tree,” Uncle Hugh said.
Father had stopped cutting his meat as he remembered that anecdote of Homer’s childhood, when he had flown up the tree to save the money. He had been considered an angel because they look fir money stuck to the most unlikely places. Homer would flap his arms to fly like a bird once he had gone out in the backyard. That had to be fun!
“Everyone loved him,” mother said.
“He’s la star,” Uncle Hugh said.
Then he showed the child a black and white photograph.
“This is you,” he said. “I took this picture with my first camera.”
Homer saw a chubby baby with long hair and a toothless smile, sitting in a chair. Mother had curled his hair to make him look like an angel before posing in front of the camera. She served lunch in Uncle Hugh’s plate while they talked of Homer’s childhood. He had been born during a solar eclipse, and cried for the first time with the retreating shadows. The details of his birth had been dramatic. The sun had hid behind the moon’s shadow as he slid out of his mother’s body. Homer wanted to cover his ears to stop hearing anymore things.
“I thought I was going to die,” mother said.
Tragedy had marked the beginning of Homer’s life. The spots on the wall had become dragons while mother spoke of his infancy, but he wanted to play in the backyard full of mud.
“Homer has been happy here,” mother said.
Uncle Hugh told them of his life as a journalist in New York, where he had to interview many famous people. He had acquired a reputation in Homer’s household equal to that of a superhero, but he had the habit of pushing up his glasses over his fat nose and wore false teeth. Homer wouldn’t stop looking at his teeth as the man said he had met cinema stars.
Homer had his lunch, as Uncle Hugh spoke of the Niagara Falls, the White House, the Grand Canyon and the Statue of Liberty. He had sent many letters over the years telling them of his life in that other world, where amazing things happened.
“I have met President Roosevelt,” he said.
Homer thought he had to be important if Uncle Hugh had met him. The spots on the wall changed into dragons, as Homer listened to all the things his uncle had done in that other country.
As Uncle Hugh spoke of his life in New York, the sun shone on the tree in the backyard full of birds and squirrels looking for nuts. Then he held a bag in his hands, as he showed them pictures of Hollywood.
“Valentino used to live here,” he gestured at the black and white image of a house with nice gardens.
The child kept his eyes in the bag as they discussed Valentino’s death. Homer wanted to know what he kept inside that bag he squashed against the table. Then Uncle Hugh opened it and Homer saw a truck with small doors and a driver inside. It would be perfect for carrying mud about the yard.
“Thanks, Uncle Hugh,” he said.
The man smiled. “You must visit me in New York.”
Homer held the truck on his lap as Uncle Hugh showed them a few pictures of the city.
“This is the Empire State Building,” he said.
Homer saw a tall building framed against the dark sky, like a giant sentinel over the city, while the Statue of Liberty, guarding the entrance to the port. Then Uncle Hugh gave him a shiny cent he had found in his pocket.
“Put it in your money box,” he said. “It will bring you good luck.”
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.
“It’s time to go to bed,” mother 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. As Homer looked at it under the electric bulb, he saw the profile of a man. He had to be a hero to be in the coin. Homer put it in his bag before he went to bed, where he would dream with the tall buildings.
Uncle Hugh slept in the guest room, next to the marks on the wall undergoing some kind of transformation. Homer imagined his uncle fighting the spirits of the house that night, when they all slept. The man had gone by the time Homer had his breakfast next morning, but he had a new coin and the mysteries of his birth had been revealed to him. The image dark sun chased him whenever he played with his cars or sailed his boats in the small pond he had made for the ants. He kept on thinking of the eclipse all the time, when our nearest star had deserted the moment of his birth.
Homer dreamed of foreign lands where the dollar reined supreme, while running around the tree in the backyard. He had retreated into a world full of fantasy by the time Uncle Hugh visited them a few months later. The man brought Homer a few toy cars and a tricycle.
“You can go around your tree now,” he said.
Homer played with his cars as Uncle Hugh spoke of his life as a journalist in New York while the sun shone on the tree full of birds and squirrels looked for nuts in the backyard.
“We cover some of the most important stories in the world,” he said.
Homer imagined his uncle chasing film stars in their limousines when they went shopping in that place called Broadway.
“The shop is empty today,” Father said.
People preferred to do their shopping in the nearby market and Homer’s parents didn’t make much money. Father had tried to attract customers by selling beads and a few other things but it had not worked. They needed a miracle to increase their sales. Money filled Homer’s mind, as he took truckloads of mud across the yard later. He thought of tall buildings and film stars while playing by the pond. The day looked cloudy as shadows scurried in the corners, as he saw a skinny boy behind the tree. Homer imagined he had magic powers like the fairies from the stories.
“Hello,” he said.
The child didn’t move as Homer carried a load of mud to a hole by the wall. Time went past in this new reality where someone had invaded his universe.
“I’m Jose,” the boy said at last.
Homer studied the stranger with dirty shoes and stained shirt as he wiped his nose, leaving muddy streaks across his face.
“Would you like to play with my cars?” Homer asked.
After kneeling down on the floor, Jose ran one of the trucks along the track of dirt leading to the fence. Then his truck flew around the yard, pretending to be a plane, but he fell on his face and Homer laughed. He washed his hands in the water tap by the door before playing with the cars again.
“I come from the jungle,” he said.
Homer shrugged. “You’re a liar.”
Jose jumped on him and they rolled amidst the mud and stones. Homer barked and Jose 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 thought his friend was invisible to adults.
“Nobody can see me,” the child said. “That’s how I steal clothes from the shops and food from the market.”
Homer thought of the invisible family stealing things in the shops. Jose didn’t need any money to buy food as he could get everything he wanted.
“Can I be invisible too?”
Jose took his shirt off and gave it to Homer.
“No one can see you now,” he said.
Homer put the dirty shirt on and looked through the kitchen window where his mother cooked dinner but she didn’t notice him. Uncle Hugh had to be with his father in the shop. He went nearer the window until his cheek touched the glass as his mother turned the plantains before they burned. She might have been too busy to notice his face or she had not seen him.
“You’d be sad if you were invisible,” Jose said.
Jose told him about the cloak of invisibility sheltering him and his family against the world whenever they went. He had never known anything different in his life.
“Poor people are often invisible,” he said.
Homer thought of the consequences the invisibility shield might bring him, as his mother washed the saucepan she had used for cooking the rice. Homer could do what he wanted if no one saw him, but then his mother wouldn’t cook his lunch or wash his clothes. He gave the shirt back to his friend.
“I’ll be invisible when I grow up,” he said.
He played with his new friend under the sun, where muddy ponds shimmered like sacred lakes lost in time. Then Jose knelt down in the middle of the yard.
“Take us to your ship,” he said.
Homer joined him on the floor to pray to the tree of life.
“Protect us against all evil,” the child said.
“Amen,” Homer said.
Jose gestured at the stars that had appeared in the sky, as the sun set in the horizon.
“They’re mine,” he said.
Homer looked at the specks of light shimmering through the darkness while Jose ran in circles around the tree. He touched the bark some times but didn’t stop his movements about the yard, while chanting strange words.
“Two and two are seven,” he said.
Homer frowned. “No.”
“I say that whenever I feel worried.”
Homer followed his friend as shadows spread around them and more stars appeared in the sky. They danced by the tree of life rising towards infinity, but then Jose gestured to a belt of stars across the heavens.
“God sun,” he said. “Take us in your ship across the universe.”
They danced around the tree as the dog barked. Homer also barked but Jose put a finger on his lips.
“Quiet,” he said.
Then lightning crisscrossed the sky and thunder rumbled, while thick drops of water made everything wet and rain fell over the world.
“I have to go home,” Jose said.
He disappeared in the air. Homer looked for his friend behind the tree and in the cupboard where he kept his toys, but then he remembered his shield of invisibility. Then he found a roll of papers on the floor. They must have fallen out of Jose’s pocket as he ran away. After putting the papers in his box, he spent a boring evening, as his parents counted the little money they had earned during the day and Uncle Hugh told them about his life in the USA. It had rained when they had been outside but the weather looked better now. A few stars peeked from behind the clouds and the Milky Way had to be up there, where suns burned amidst dust and gas like Jose had said. Homer came back to reality as father asked for the salt, but then 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.
Homer nodded. He wiped his mouth with a napkin and kissed his parents goodnight as Uncle Hugh patted his head.
“Don’t have bad dreams tonight,” he said.
Homer saw the backyard from his window, where the tree towered over everything, its branches reaching for the sky. Jose had to be real if he had played with his toy cars. As Homer polished his coin, he imagined all the pesos he might have in a few months. Then he put it in his money box inside the cupboard with his shoes.
“Two and two are seven,” he muttered to himself.
ARMAGHEDON CHAPTER FROM THE NOVEL SEVEN MINUTES by Ismael Camacho (my father)
Why am I writing this? I know how it started but I can’t say how it finished. Is this the most important moment for humankind?
All of these questions come to my mind now that I am going back to the primordial matter, and I will cease to be me. Have I ever been myself?
I have been many things that start and finish in a moment but I’ve never been sure of that. Will I be something now that I’m about to end?
Have the electrons found out that they are electrons? Do the stars know what they are?
I hear a noise as if the sun was blowing in cosmic tones. No one has ever heard anything like that and no one will hear it again. I have recorded it, and people in other parts of the world have done the same thing. Why? Perhaps I want to teach my children to identify an atmosphere that has been perturbed by a coughing sun.
I hear shouts in the streets, hallucinated words, the crying of the dying and drunk men singing. I had never seen or heard anything like that and I will never do again.
Everything started simply. It was a day like all the others. Workmen went to their work, wearing their overalls and their packed lunches. All men carried their solitude to pass another day somewhere else.
It was a day without personality. Everybody went somewhere, or they thought so. They all felt ashamed to be alive and did something else to pass the time. What they call work. You put down your head and contract your fingers and muscles. We have to move them until the clock on the wall tells us to stop.
The middle class man, who goes into his Rolls Royce and greets the uniformed driver, is the gravitational centre of the earth. He won’t give much bread to those poor people, who look from afar. They’re afraid to steal the light of his landscape.
Streets full of people, buses, trucks, taxis, and big automobiles, smaller automobiles, bicycles, women with dogs, policemen with whistles and revolvers, children.
Nobody looked at the sun. They all knew they were a part of the sun, even if they didn’t notice it. It rose on one side and went down the other, with regular monotony and they couldn’t think anything different. Primitive man worshipped the sun. It was fresher than the ancestral message. The Inca made a toast of chicha (16) to the sun from the highest point in the Andes. Some others offered the flesh and hearts of men.
Our father sun had decided to eliminate us, perhaps because he didn’t have any more chicha and hearts. He would leave our toasted ashes in the cosmic cloud, as a reminder of the children of the sun.
On that particular day, the news travelled fast everywhere. I had just got dressed, when the radio programme was interrupted. Someone said: Attention! Attention! Extra! Extra!!! Extra!!!
I thought they wanted to sell soap for washing clothes and didn’t pay any attention.
“…northern lights in all regions, including the tropics. Several observatories all around the world are in contact to explain the phenomenon. A dense fog has descended all over the earth. We’ll keep you informed of any new developments.”
Breakfast was ready. I had bought sausages the day before and felt hungry. What were the northern lights? I would look at the encyclopaedia in the evening. I had forgotten to pay a few monthly quotas, and I had received letters from the seller. I stopped thinking about the problems. I wanted to have a good day. The radio went on. The night before a bank had been robbed, while a jet plane with seven hundred people had fallen into the ocean. Everyone died. A Czechoslovakian man burned himself in a protest against Russia, while another one in Saigon did that as a protest against the USA. The presenter tells me to buy chewing gum and smart shirts, while the pope says some bishops hate God, and a few bishops say the pope hates God. The presenter tells us about three dimensional televisions with smells. They’re indispensable in our homes. EXTRA!!! EXTRA!!! EXTRA!!!
Radio and television transmissions have been affected by intense solar activity.
He talked of the sun again. What did it matter the solar activity and the radio communication? I could hear the radio very well but it was a local station. Would I have any problems with long distance programs? I lit my cigarette and heard: EXTRA! EXTRA!
The maid appeared at that moment.
“Come,” she said.
As I opened the window, a dense fog came in the house. Something had to be burning nearby. I had never seen anything like that.
EXTRA! EXTRA! The authorities have informed the citizens of the fog over the city. They want people to stay at home. You must go out in the street only if it is urgent. Cars should drive at low speeds and with their lights on to stop any accidents. The schools are shut. EXTRA! EXTRA!
The neighbouring houses had disappeared under the fog, while shadows moved within the clouds, like lost angels. Lights appeared sometimes, driving slowly in the whiteness enveloping the world.
I felt hot in spite of the fog. I decided to stay at home and sat down to listen to the radio. As I tried to find radio stations in short waves, I only heard noise. I went back to the local station, but it had been put together with the national radio. The world had never seen anything else like this
Attention! All the radio stations are in contact with the national radio, to bring you information about the rare things happening in the country and in the world. We have to do this because communications by radio are getting more difficult.
We are doing a resume of the situation in the country from the central station in Bogota. Fog has invaded the country, and the air service has been stropped. Airplanes that were in the air have been declared in emergency. We don’t know what has happened to them. The fog is greater in the ports, while the level of the seas has receded. Small and big ships have been left stranded by the coasts. We don’t know the number of victims up to now. Rare atmospheric events have been seen. This glow in the sky looks like the northern lights or auroras borealis. We beg our citizens to be calm.
I saw the fog outside the window. Then I noticed the dancing lights up there amidst the clouds. I had seen an aurora boreal before but this spectacle surpassed everything else. I phoned my girlfriend and her mother told me that she had not arrived at her office yet.
The national radio is in contact with central and North American radio. Similar things have been reported from all parts of the continent. It’s five o’clock in the morning in Hawaii, where the auroras have been a beautiful spectacle. The situation is grave, that’s why we can’t leave any space for commercials. We can’t waist any time.
We’re making contact with radio Barranquilla. Attention!
This is Barranquilla, transmitting for the national radio. We’re driving away from the city by very crowded roads. Everybody is getting away from the sea. They fear the water might come back in a giant wave. We have seen terrible things amidst the fog. Buses and trucks full of people are waiting for the traffic to move. We ask everyone to be calm. We pass you to our central offices now.
This is central station in Barranquilla. The city has been evacuated, and only a few people remain here. It’s difficult to see anything in the intense fog. I’m connecting now with Bogota.
This is radio Bogota. We don’t have any water now, and we advice our citizens to get bottled water. It’s indispensable at the moment. Attention!
We ask everyone to remain in their homes if they don’t have an urgent business in the city. We beg people living near the coasts to keep calm. We mustn’t fear the sea as its waters are going down. We don’t have news of sea quakes. Doctors and nurses must report to their jobs.
Most cities in the country don’t have electricity by now. All radio stations with a petrol plant or with electricity must get in contact with the central station. We are talking to different cities to find out the general situation of the country.
According to communications with national observatories, and the latest international news, the sun is pulsating, and has thrown the world into chaos. Our sun seems to have more energy that its size requires. We must keep calm. Most of the victims have happened because of the general panic. Many people have died inside the churches here in Bogota. The authorities have decided to shut them. The rest of the country must do the same thing.
It doesn’t look good in New York, where the skyscrapers have disappeared amidst the fog. They have lost communications with all space craft in Houston. We don’t know the number of ships and planes involved in accidents as confusion reigns on earth.
At the central station, we’ll try to keep in contact with the different countries of the world.
Now we will give you an extraordinary bulletin. The country has awoken today to a few rare phenomenons. They’re caused by the sun pulsating, according to the experts. The things happening in Colombia, have been experienced all over the planet. The sun has gone back to its usual size. And the problem has ended. We must keep calm until everything goes back to normal.
We have dense fog everywhere, and it has interrupted all communications. The sea levels have gone down, increasing the fear of sea quakes. The ports have been evacuated in chaos and many people have died. We beg you to be calm.
This is the national radio and we have just read the number one news of the moment.
It is raining in Bogota. Attention! An electric storm has developed over the city, with rain and hale. As I looked out of the window, I saw rain pouring amidst the fog. Thousands of hail stones fell over the city while the house shook. I ran out of the room and stood in the middle of the patio. The earth moved and I felt like in the middle of an angry sea. I had to go down on the floor as the water and hail kept on coming. The maids screamed next to me. They called San Emilio, who seems to know of these things.
A rumble came out of the earth while houses fell down around us. I lay down with my head on the floor for about fifteen minutes. We stood up sometimes, but the quake started again. It stopped later and the city was quiet as water fell on us. The house had been destroyed, except for two rooms by the back yard. They were small and tough. The entire city seemed to have been destroyed and the fog had almost vanished.
I found the radio by my side. As I tried to get a radio station, I heard only static. Perhaps it was broken or they didn’t exist anymore.
I went out in the street followed by the maids. We saw a few wet and frightened people. The dust had mixed with the water and we looked like carbon miners. We heard someone shouting from the nearest ruins. As we tried to get over there, a wall collapsed and the shouts stopped. We were left in silence.
I felt alone with nature as I sat under a big tree in the park. Something told me the end of humanity was near.
As I opened my eyes, I saw people looking like ghosts around me. They had mud all over their bodies and looked at me with empty eyes. Most of them had sat on the floor but some others moved about. No one said anything. I switched on the radio to pass the time. I heard a voice after a while: Here H.K.5 A.C.1….H.K.5 A.C.1…Attention! Attention! A terrible earthquake has destroyed most of the city of Palmira. Attention! We must mobilise all the help available: firemen, police, the army, doctors and nurses. Attention! This is an urgent call…
Hello! Hello! We’ve received your message H.K.5. A.C.1. Here is H.K.9. D.G.U. here H.K.9 D.G.U. The quake has destroyed most of the city of Cali. We are the only human beings left around here. Attention! We ask everybody to help the cities of Cali and Palmira….
Attention! Attention! Here is voice Bogota. We are using the equipment we managed to find for this programme. Attention all the country. The capital of the country has been destroyed by an earthquake. Attention! I repeat. Bogota has been destroyed by a quake. We need urgent help.
It was still raining. I joined a rescue group. As we went around the streets, we found the remains of buildings amidst rivers of blood. We found a wounded man. We made a stretcher with a few sheets to take him to the clinic. Then we saw two dying women and a child. We made our way with the injured people towards the ruins of a clinic. We improvised a hospital between the ruins and offered the wounded people water mixed with hail.
What else could we do? I found a bottle of aguardient left intact amidst the rubbish. I drank most of it and felt much better. I switched on the radio again.
I found transmissions from Buga, Tulua and Medellin. They all asked for help. All of the country had been affected by the earthquake. I heard the voices of the survivors calling for help. I fell asleep.
I woke up as people ran around and screamed. Some of them had no clothes on while other wore rags. Everyone looked drunk. I supposed they had found more aguardiente. A woman, who had lost her right arm, swore while moving the other limb. She fell on the floor and didn’t move again. A child looked in the mud for his missing left ear, while a river of blood ran down his shoulders.
Aguardient seemed to be the only medication available. I retired to my corner to drink from my bottle as the rain kept on pouring. I switched on the radio.
This is the emergency radio. We ask for calm. All the stations must join us. We’ll have news about the rest of the country very soon. It has been a universal disaster. The sea quake happened after the earthquake. Most of the sea ports have disappeared as far as we know. We have heard that Caracas in Venezuela has gone under the water.
We are not transmitting personal messages for anyone. We are working for the whole community. The survivors must remain calm and alcohol should be consumed in small quantities. We don’t have a government now. I think all of the members of the republic have died in the quake. A doctor will tell us what to do with the wounded. Attention! Attention! People in charge of help groups must copy or record the following instructions…
I moved down the street up to a place, where fired burned. Doctors and nurses gave first aid to wounded people in a few tents they had erected. It smelled of dirt and blood. I cried and vomited for some time.
Humankind was dying but it held to life with force. I felt empty and lonely as I retired to a dark corner to listen to the radio. I heard the voice again.
All the cars had to be taken to the emergency places that have been erected.
Here is Palmira transmitting. Palmira has urgent news for the national radio. The road from Palmira to Cali has disappeared. A small mountain has formed in between the two cities after the earthquake. Things are bad in the city. We have found some medical equipment indispensable for the rescue in the ruins of hospitals. We are looking for drugs amidst the rubble, with the help of tractors we have found. Ninety per cent of the city has been destroyed.
This is central station. You have just heard news from Palmira. The geography has been changed around Cali. A salty sea seems to exist a few kilometres at the south of the city. We will know more about it later. We are in contact with the central station in Bogota. Attention! Bogota.
The capital of the republic has been completely destroyed. We have heard bad news coming from everywhere. The ports have disappeared and the sea has gone inside the country. Groups of people trying to reach neighbouring towns tell us that the roads are gone. The fog has lifted and communication by radio is easier now. We are trying to use small aeroplanes to survey the area, even though the airports have been destroyed.
We don’t have much news from the United States. The city of New York and the towns near it have disappeared. Florida has been wiped out of the map. It’s all due to the pulsating sun. We don’t have any news from Europe.
I went to sleep and saw shattered bodies, giant suns exploding and seas of blood in my dreams. I woke up as the pale rays of the sun appeared in the small room where I had taken refuge the night before. At first I thought I had dreamed the whole thing. Then I noticed the muddy walls and felt cold. Someone was talking on the radio.
…Ibague has been almost totally destroyed. Here are the names of the victims we have identified up to now…
I was hungry. The street seemed to be having a carnival. Naked and muddy people worked with rudimentary tools to take bodies out of the ruins. I saw drunken people singing and crawling in the mud. Someone had gone inside a coffin where he had eaten tin sardines and had drunk aguardiente. Music poured out of speakers in a corner while naked men and women danced. They said: hurrah to death, and shouted during the intervals.
A beautiful girl came closer to me. She made me drink from a bottle of gin she had in her hand.
“Drink, comrade,” she said, pushing the bottle against my teeth. “This is the end of the world. Can you see that rubble? That’s where my family died. I only heard a knock: Bang! And then it finished. Drink comrade. Drink! UUUUUIIPPPAAA!!!
A tall man sat on the ruins. He put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger. I saw his contorted face, and he was still with his eyes wide open. I woman took the gun. Then she shot herself in the heart.
The gin made me feel hot but hungry. As I moved along the road, I saw dead bodies burning over fires. People discussed the number of fires they needed to burn them.
“Won’t it stop raining?” someone asked.
“I’m hungry,” I said.
A man gave me a damp piece of bread. I ate it, even if it tasted funny. Then I saw the shadows. Some of them prayed aloud as they carried something resembling a saint. I had many friends but they had all disappeared. I didn’t know where I was. I didn’t want to die.
I heard a choir of voices singing: Life, I want to live. They smelled of aguadiente. I went singing with them.
A group of vultures looked at us. Then they went back to eating a dead body.
Someone shouted: Hurrah to the vultures.
We all shouted: hurrah to the voucher. The animals looked at us with indifference.
I was tired and I wanted to phone my mother. I could feel the touch of her hands. I wanted my mother.
A bus across the street served as my refuge. I lay down across a seat and cried while calling my mother.
I woke up feeling calmer. I felt empty at first but glad to be life. Then I heard voices in the radio.
Communications have been restored. This is a major crisis for humanity. We want to present you with the latest scientific explanation for the catastrophe. The sun has pulsated. Scientists think it might happen again, and we must be prepared. Mount Palomar hasn’t suffered major damage during the earthquake. Astronomers think our star might explode as a nova, after a few studies they have done. The word means new, because stars appear in the sky, where nothing was there before. If this is true, things might get more complicated. We have an alarm to transmit all over the world, if this is the case. The communication satellites have disappeared that’s why we have to put together all the radio stations.
When we give the alarm, we must all go to a secure place. The chain of radios covers the world, and we’ll be giving instruction in different languages. Seven minutes is enough time to proceed in the best possible way. You must lie down with your head on the floor. It’s recommended to be in a flat land far from buildings and rivers.
Most of the victims of the earthquake died in the cities. If we take precautions this time, we might survive.
A few observatories are working now, and we have convened the best phrase for the alarm. We must say in all places and in all the languages: SEVEN MINUTES.
That sentence means that we have to lie down, with our face to the ground, and far away from any buildings.
We urge our listener to give these instructions to everyone else. We repeat. The sun might explode again. It will be worse this time. We’ll say the sentence: WE HAVE SEVEN MINUTES, several times. We have to be ready for some more intense seismic movements.
The patrols must find as much petrol as they can to use in tractors and other vehicles. We have to use it in the incineration of the bodies. We don’t have any vaccines now, and the only way to prevent an epidemic is by burning the dead people.
You must count seven minutes in your watches, while trying to do everything necessary for your security. This way you’ll be prepared for the alarm: WE ONLY HAVE SEVEN MINUTES.
