ANDA CADARIU

The Sunbeam.
Niki and
George. Vena
Cava
It was precisely the day when the
sun could be seen again, for the first
(a short story) time in three weeks. The blocks of flats

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on the outskirts of Bucharest were
standing erect under the blue sky,
surrounded by waves of light, looking
just like a row of decayed teeth
examined by a supremely talented
dentist.
On the 6th floor of the first block
on Forest Lily st., the kitchen of studio
no. 74 was dosing as the tea kettle was
hissing. The sound of the shower
rinsing a shampooed head was coming
from the bathroom. The silence of the
night was slowly dissipating, under the
inquisitive eye of a sunbeam that was
scanning the objects in the kitchen. The
microwave oven, the cooker, the fire-
proof glove, strategically hung nearby,
the green light bulb and several boxes
containing cinnamon, pepper, coriander,
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ginger and sweet basil, juniper and
Indian tea, the cupboard which was full
of white, black, yellow and red pots; all
these were scrutinized by the inquisitive
gaze of the sunbeam, which had toiled
to penetrate through the square, double
window of the room, which hadn’t been
washed for over three months.
The sunbeam was guided by the
movements of the poplar trees in front
of the window. After it had inspected
the kitchen, it focused on a large,
rectangular metal box. The lid of the
box was lying listlessly on a limp chair.
Inside the box, there were two
cookies. They were asleep, holding each
other, as good friends usually do. The
sunbeam ran on the rim of the metallic
box, watching its inhabitants, who were
still sleeping. The two cookies were
called Niki and George. They belonged
to the same flour-product family, they
were born in Denmark and the owner
of the studio had bought them straight
from Carrefour Orhideea, on the
occasion of an expedition undertaken
two weeks before in the respective
supermarket. They were the only two
cookies left – the other members of the
family had disappeared in the insatiable
stomach of their owner.
Ever y morning, there was a
moment of silence in the metal box,
because every morning a cookie was
eaten. Although they had come to
accept their sad fate, Niki and George
had decided to die together. Their code
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of belief was stick together and they
couldn’t be separated ever since they
had promised to stand side by side,
through thick and thin. None of the
inhabitants of the box could tear them
apart. Actually, nobody would do such a
thing, because the other cookies had
been too concerned with their own fate:
they used to spend their days trembling
with fear, thinking only about the
greedy stomach that would engulf
them, maybe the next day, maybe the
day after that, maybe on Thursday.
Niki and George had produced the
largest amount of tears ever when they
were faced with the disappearance of
Kiki, their pretzel-shaped smaller
friend. Every time they saw the hand
with a silvery Swatch attached to it
coming closer to the box in which they
were living and sifting through it, the
two friends would climb on Kiki and
protect him from the sinister itinerary
the end of which was the horrible,
devastating digestion. Until one day,
when they failed at defending him.
Their friend had left them, waving a red
handkerchief, while the fatal hand was
guiding him towards the two incisors
that would cut him in small pieces, in
order to make him easier to digest.
The sunbeam lost its balance and
fell in the box, pushed by the
movement of the poplars in front of the
window, landing on George’s face; he
yawned and gave Niki a nudge: “Wake
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up! We’re the only ones left. Today is
our last day. Let’s have a coffee; the
beast is still in the shower. We have
about fifteen minutes left, and then…
we die.” Niki rubbed his eyes and then
decided to forget everything: the daily
deaths he was forced to watch, the
atrocities committed by the Swatch-
wearing hand, the fear triggered by the
thought of gastric juice, bile, incisors,
eye-teeth and grinders, the fact that he
and George had perhaps only a quarter
of an hour left to live. So the two
Siamese cookies drank their coffee, as
they did every morning. This morning
they were talking about the cockroach
invasion that had taken place two
nights before. Oh, the horror that all
cookies had gone through! Large and
disgusting cockroaches, with breast-
plated bodies had darted into the box,
the lid of which had been then, just as
now, lying on a chair. After a tight
battle, the cookies had succeeded in
defeating the terrible invaders. The
owner of the kitchen had thought that
it was the insecticide he had bought
which had done away with the
cockroaches, so he continued to
ungratefully eat the contents of the
box.
The sunbeam started to tremble
with laughter the moment Niki and
George got down to gossip about
Adelle, the orange. “She’s fat and ill-
natured” – goes Niki. “Plus, she’s got a
mustache. At least I’ll win one thing if
I’m eaten today: I won’t have to look at
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her red swollen face from now on. ”
George says: “You’re just being mean.
Who’s forcing you to look at her?”
Niki: “Oh, well...”
The shower has stopped. Niki and
George are freezing with panic, choking
on their coffee. Bitter tears are pouring
out of their vanilla-flavored eyes.
They’re both taking a deep breath,
while the thumping of the plastic shoes
on the kitchen floor is announcing the
approach of the beast. The two cookies
are hugging one another even tighter,
smoking their last cigarettes, thinking
of all the beautiful moments spent
together… The beast is lifting the kettle
from the cooker. He’s making himself a
green, oriental tea. One can hear how
he’s pouring the hot water over the
Lipton teabag. Niki, George and the
sunbeam are waiting, their hearts
throbbing. Maybe something is going to
happen. Maybe the phone will ring. Or
maybe some neighbour, desperate
because her sink pipe broke would beat
against the door, with her hair on end,
screaming “Heeeeelllp!” Or… maybe…
the beast would trip and break his leg.
Indeed, just like in fairy-tales, an
unusual event occurs and changes the
situation: the Swatch-decorated hand
miraculously stops above the box inside
which Niki and George are trembling.
Its fingers are contracting. And then,
the hand falls in the metallic container,
crushing the two cookies. The owner of
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studio no. 74 has collapsed on the floor,
together with the earthly remains of
Niki and George.
The neighbors called the
ambulance only after three days, so the
cookie-predator couldn’t be saved. His
vena cava was all rags at the moment of
the heart attack. The doctors had told
him two years before to keep a strict
diet, but the beast went on eating
cookies, although he knew he wasn’t
allowed to eat anything based on milk,
flour or saturated fats.
Niki and George ended up in the
stomach of a stray dog.
The day the cookies died, the
sunbeam cried for a while and then,
helped by the movements of the
poplars in front of the building, decided - translated into English by the
to never inspect the kitchen of flat no. author; with the author’s illustrations -
74 again. The next day, the sunbeam
darted at no. 75, where she saw a little
girl, with her blonde hair plaited in two
tails. The girl was surrounded by
colored pencils and white paper sheets,
and she was drawing two cookies who
were sleeping in a metal box.

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