Adventure Under Ground

One sleepless night I went out to walk my dog. Although I had noticed that for a few days some digging had been in progress on my street, I failed to be heedful enough and fell in a ditch. Frightened, I started to scream:'Help! Help!''Well, dear,' said a man who seemed to be in the same situation as me, 'don't waste your breath, nobody will hear you anyway. I've been here for two days. Be patient, we'll be all right, eventually somebody will discover us. How's your cigarette supply?''I've got a brand new packet.''Perfect. Let's smoke and chat. As for food, don't worry: I've got two loaves of bread, some salami and a bottle of mineral water.'I have to confess that we felt wonderful in the ditch, lying on the moist and cool ground. The guy, who introduced himself as a history teacher, was nice and talkative. After he had told me a few very funny things about Caesar's personal life and unraveled the real secret of the battle of Waterloo, I fell deeply asleep, without taking any sleeping pills. Actually, my wife had long told me that the only solution to get rid of insomnia was to sleep outdoors, i.e. to move my bed to the balcony or to the block's backyard. The following morning I did, together with the teacher, some research on the ditch and found out it was the work of the capital's Water and Sewerage Company: at our feet lay a water pipe.'Stay calm,' said the teacher, 'these guys have to show up in a couple of days to finish their work.'Indeed, after exactly two days the WSC workers came and started filling the ditch. In vain did we howl in despair, nobody heard us. To avoid being buried alive, we found refuge in a fairly spacious concrete tube dumped in the great ditch.'Stay calm,' said the teacher, an incorrigible optimist, 'it is impossible that a WSC work should not be followed by one of the Electricity Company.'And so it was indeed; the very next morning we heard the sound of pickaxes and pneumatic hammers. The work was so efficient that the ditch was reopened in no time at all. Unfortunately, the noise was too loud for the diligent workers to hear our screams, so we stayed on there, in the ditch. Our courage never faltered. To make sure we would survive, we decided to have only one piece of bread and one slice of salami a day, the dog having to content itself with the leftovers. To cut a long story short, we had several rounds of diggings, the street being successively besieged by the gas workers, those from the Telecom and from the Building team no. 45. At a certain moment I voiced my worry to the teacher:'I can't possibly imagine who else could come to dig our street.''Let's be optimistic,' he said. 'A street so broad and so full of traffic cannot for one moment escape the digger's attention.'Almost simultaneously the pneumatic hammers started roaring above our heads. This time we were determined to save ourselves at any cost. We screamed so loud and the dog barked so violently that we were eventually heard. A bald, very tanned and spectacled man descended into the ditch.'Who are you digging for?,' I asked.'We're archaeologists. What commune are you from?''We live on this street.''So you're not from the primitive commune?!,' the archaeologist wondered.'No,' we answered. 'We're contemporary with the Water and Sewerage Company.''Pity. If I had found some ancient pieces, I could have made an important presentation at the Seminar of Balkanology.''Listen,' I asked him, 'why didn't you come to do your research when those from the WSC and the Electricity Company and so on and so forth dug? Why did you have to do it all over again?''You're right,' the archaeologist answered, 'we should have synchronized, but I was then on holiday.'After I warmly thanked my savior, I went back home and told my wife about the terrible experience I had been through: 'You see, dearest, I fell into a ditch and was left there for four days and four nights, incredible misfortune.''Oh, dear!,' she exclaimed, pulling her curlers, 'the lies men come up with nowadays!'


by Ion Băieşu (1933-1992)