This is an extract from the novel Siete minutos by Ismael Camacho Arango:

Dear Apollo

I think this has all finished.  I’m leaving this last letter under the earth, for you to read after the party.

    I have seen or I’m still seeing the greatest spectacle of all times, and I haven’t paid one penny.

    Man has become rational for the first time.  A few people found a box full of dollars not long ago.  They picked up some pieces of bread, while looking at the money whit indifference.  The sun had to get fat for that miracle to happen. 

     It’s the first time I’ve seen men acting like animals.  An earthquake has left them without nationalism, money, Gods, millionaires, generals, popes, economists, skyscrapers, nationalities, footballers, clothes, fashion, morals, communists, and all of those other things we thought were eternal.  The last seven minutes of mankind have redeemed all of that.

     We might hear this advice at any time: WE ONLY HAVE SEVEN MINUTES. 

     I’m sitting on the first seats by now, and I don’t want to miss the spectacle.  It must be the last act, because the other one has been superb.  I think we might expect something even better.

     I had not understood the beauty of living up to now.  I needed a few general cataclysms and most of humanity buried under the mud to understand the importance of life.  They called us Homo sapiens.

     What did he do all of this time? He built temples to imaginary Gods.  He adored myths, and lived only for them.

     I think this is a good thing.  This planet has finished and it must be erased from the universe.  They must immunise all the other stars against stupidity, because it’s dangerous.  It can produce an infection again.

This is a poem I wrote in honour of the novel  siete minutos

  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’ve 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

 

Homer you’re my hero! 

 

Siete minutos 

 

Armageddon